What We Were
by Crisium
Summary: Just because it doesn't last doesn't mean it isn't real. Alistair/Amell, prequel to "What We Become".
1. The Beginning

A/N: Prequel to What We Become.

* * *

The new recruit's a mage.

And a _girl_.

_Woman_, Alistair supposes, but she's got the translucent-pale skin of a Tower mage and it makes her look younger, and even as he's trying to give his best "Welcome to the Wardens" smile and make an introduction she's looking around Ostagar, nervous and seeming unsettled at the chaotic din of so many people in such tight quarters.

And here he is, fresh from bickering with a different mage, and _oh_ the joys of almost being a templar, and a glorified courier. Yes, this is precisely why he'd joined the Wardens, so he could pass notes. But he shows her around anyway, and she follows him like a duckling trying not to lose its mother in the crowd.

"Poor thing," Therrin says at the kennel, leaning over the fence to get a better look at the distraught mabari. "He looks lost."

"Yes, well," Alistair says, thinking that she looks rather a bit lost herself. "Maybe you can find him a bone, or something."

Somehow, in between darkspawn and the Joining and the countless people readying for war, she does.

-oOo-

Therrin doesn't know how to _fight_.

It hadn't been too noticeable with two other soldiers tagging along, but now that it's just the two of them it's painfully, brutally obvious. Which—normally that wouldn't be a problem. A little time with the trainers, some practice…

Except that the darkspawn are crawling everywhere in the Tower of Ishal and Alistair's pretty sure they're not here for tea and crumpets, and she's standing there casting a spell blank-eyed and preoccupied in the _middle of the room_.

Honestly.

"Get down!" he orders as the Hurlock charges for her, but she's not listening and so he has to run and shove her out of the way, his blade coming up quick and clattering across the horrible creature's armor before finding flesh.

She blinks off the effects of the shattered spell and scrambles up from the floor, running for the next fight, and only jerks to a halt when he shakes his head and snatches for her arm. "Look, just… _stop_. You've got to move around, find cover, _something_. You're going to get us both killed just standing there casting and we're not going to get more than one shot at this."

She nods once and tries to be more careful after that, but it's no use at all. At the top of the tower the world falls to pieces and there's nothing either of them can do.

-oOo-

They make a good team, which is a good thing, because there's just no one else around to work with. (Except for Morrigan, and they're of an agreement in opinion on the subject of her.) The companionship just feels right, for some reason―he and his blade as her magic slips down his spine, healing him and making him stronger (it feels like a sunbeam, or summer rain, and it tickles at first but he gets used to it quickly) and the smell of lightning and ice that lingers in the air after a fight.

And she handles ancient scrolls just fine but doesn't know how to buy bread (which is equal parts horrifying and endearing), and as they make their way toward Lothering she asks questions.

Lots of questions.

Alistair doesn't mind because it takes his mind off Ostagar, and Duncan, and the enormity of the task ahead of them, and Therrin takes the world in like a sponge, always looking into corners and around trees for the next new thing. And she actually laughs at his jokes instead of laughing at _him_, and that's something.

Constellations of freckles begin cropping up on her nose and across her cheeks like tiny stars spattered on her skin.

"There's not going to be enough food in Lothering for the three of us," she laments, kicking at the dirt on the road and getting it on his boots as her stomach growls. "Not between you and me and Dog."

(They don't think Morrigan eats; they figure she lives off crow blood and spite.)

He kicks a bit of dirt back at her. "I _still _don't know where you put it all. Are you hiding it?"

She grins a little. "It's magic."

"Of course it is. Big _mage _secret, hush-hush, how to nick food and hide it from templars. I'm onto you."

She grins again, dimpling, and says nothing else.

-oOo-

And there is Lothering and frightened people and doom, and trouble in a tavern and a crazy Orlesian and doom, and a huge Qunari in a cage and templars who look at her funny and doom.

At least doom is predictable.

Less predictable is Therrin's predilection for collecting people. The Qunari is big and quiet and interesting, and the Orlesian is little and never quiet and less interesting, and though Therrin takes to her immediately he's not sure Leliana's interest is quite as sisterly as Therrin seems to think it is.

She plays with Therrin's hair a lot. Alistair doesn't know what to make of that.

There are games of fetch and campfires and thick, sludgy stews, but now that the merry band of misfits is large enough to allow it he and Therrin always take watch together. He doesn't know why, exactly―a Warden thing, maybe, comrades in arms and all that, but it feels like habit from the first night.

It feels… safe.

Then of course Leliana has to go and give her wine because she catches wind that Therrin's never had it before, and Therrin gets giggly and wiggles her toes in the grass as she sits at Alistair's side.

"You have very pretty eyes, you know," she says candidly, though he thinks for a moment that maybe she's talking to the cricket she's caught in her hands and not _him_. But she glances up at Alistair, all smiles and tipsy sunshine. "Very warm."

And maybe _you have pretty eyes_ is about as pitiful as it gets as far as pickup lines go but it staggers Alistair just fine anyway. "You can have them, if you like," he says immediately. "Carry them around in your pocket. Just don't squish them. Messy, you know. Um. So do you, by the way. Have pretty eyes."

Smooth, very smooth.

But she blushes as though he's just said something terribly poetic, pink to the tips of her ears. "Thank you." And: "You're very sweet."

And then Leliana pulls her away and Therrin looks back at him over her shoulder as she goes, and the night is humming and crickets, starlight and smiles.

-oOo-

They're never far apart.

He never stays at camp when she leaves, and so he's always right there at her shoulder, tripping over Dog and pointing out places of interest, and some days it's just the two of them venturing out together.

And she likes the rose, which is… well, it's just _brilliant_, really, and her eyes had gone all soft and she takes to smiling every time she looks at him.

Thankfully―_thankfully―_she takes the whole prince thing in stride, and they don't speak of it again because it doesn't matter.

It's not like there isn't enough going on, magic and fighting and the Blight, and all.

And doom.

It becomes a running joke—a day without doom just isn't a respectable day at all, and so they tell each other that the evening meal needs more doom in it, or that the campsite isn't quite doomed enough, and though the word shouldn't be funny it gets tossed back and forth between them until it loses all meaning, both Wardens whistling in the dark to keep the shadows at bay.

Doomity doomity doom.

And then he kisses her one night, and there's no doom in it at all.

-oOo-

Exactly why she decides to ask him about… his innocent _state_, he'll never know, but he suspects some triple alliance of womanly evil.

Morrigan and Leliana made her do it, Alistair grumbles silently, she wouldn't have thought of it on her own.

Or…?

No. Definitely not.

But he tries to turn it around, inexpertly, and just when he thinks he's got her: "Have _you_ ever licked a lamppost in winter?"

All smug and sinuous, and drawled out like honey, and he expects her to blush.

She doesn't. She blinks, instead, missing the innuendo by miles. "There aren't any lampposts at the Tower."

And just as he's about to say something (which he's sure would have been incredibly clever and smooth, and she'd have swooned and then he'd have had to catch her and maybe she'd kiss him again) Morrigan calls from across the camp, "Oh for pity's _sake_, you fool girl, he means a penis!"

So much for that.

-oOo-

It _does_ eventually come out in a sidelong muttering like she's embarrassed about it―no. No lamppost-licking for Therrin.

And like a fool, before Alistair can think: "I thought mages were supposed to be promiscuous."

She tosses him a glance, annoyed. "Who says that?"

Everyone says that, but he's not going to tell her so and make it worse. "Er… never mind. So." Alistair rests his elbows on his knees, too-casual. "You never… _had_ anyone? Special?"

"I took my magical studies very seriously," she says primly, not quite able to suppress a smile.

He snorts. "_Right_. Serious Therrin. Who's somehow not related to the Therrin who baby-talks that massive warhound and lets Leliana braid little bells into her hair."

Which had been a rather colossal mistake, in hindsight.

"No," Therrin says at last, struggling to mend the mangled hem of her robe. "It's… my best friend turned out to be a blood mage, you know. I spent most of my time with him. And besides that…" she trails off, shrugs. "I was always being watched."

Alistair can imagine what it must have been like, trapped in the Tower with templars everywhere like living, brutish statues. "Creepy."

"Not really." Her smile then is faint and a little sad, and she doesn't say anything else.

-oOo-

The Pearl is no place for an ex-almost-Templar.

For one thing there's the women who drape themselves over his shoulders and tug at his ears when they turn red, laughing brightly at his embarrassment.

For another, Leliana's taken Therrin shopping and _Maker have mercy_ he doesn't know what kind of robe that is, but he can't even look at her without having the most incredibly lurid thoughts and the unfortunate choice of location is only making things worse.

And Therrin's playing cards (losing at cards, more accurately) to a woman captain who looks as though she'd like to eat them all for lunch and the little mageling in particular with honey and cream and…

Oh, Andraste.

He's never going to turn back to his proper color.

Leliana bends down to whisper something, lips brushing against Therrin's ear a moment before she takes up a spot at the wall next to Alistair, watching the fearless leader play. "Are you alright, Alistair?" Leliana asks, far too innocently. "You look a bit like you're about to explode."

He levels a glare at the bard. "You're evil. _Evil_. How could you drag me here with… with them, and with _her_, and―and _those_." He gestures vaguely in the direction of the robes. He's fairly sure there was something against robes like that in the Chant.

Tevinter?

I hardly know 'er.

"Do you like them?" Leliana burbles too-innocently. "She's lovely in blue, don't you think?"

"I hate you." He considers, really considers, getting a drink because he feels like he might need one and badly, but under the circumstances it's probably a bad idea.

Leliana only grins, dimpling prettily. "What's wrong? Little templar afraid the big bad mage will devour his soul?"

"And you've handed her a _fork_," he mutters back, thankful that the card game seems over, at least, though he's not certain he likes the considering look on Therrin's face as she glances around the Pearl.

Sure enough: "Do you think we should just do it and get it over with? The whole virginity thing," she explains matter-of-factly, oblivious to his mouth falling open and the awful squeaky noise coming out in place of his voice. "I mean… theoretically, this would be the kind of place where you could do that sort of thing. Aren't you curious?"

"Get it over with?" he manages at last, glad that at least his voice isn't cracking and breaking like an egg with a death wish. "I'm not sure…"

_**Yes**_, a part of his brain is saying, _just say __**yes**__, you idiot._

"I mean," she continues, peering down a hallway. "I suppose they all know what they're doing. Could be interesting."

Wait, what?

"Oh, you mean with _other people_," he blurts before he can stop himself, and the look of surprise on her face is enough to make him want to run out the door shouting all the way back to camp. "Right. Yes. So."

She doesn't say anything but red creeps across her cheeks, and before it can get any more horrifyingly embarrassing he extends a hand. "So. Yes. Let's just start over, shall we? I'm Alistair."

She takes it, shakes his hand once. "Therrin."

"You're the new recruit, then," he barrels on, tripping over the words because the robes are cut ridiculously, obscenely low in the front and he can't help but notice the blush is spreading across her chest and oh, _mercy_.

Therrin's laugh is a little thin. "Yep. That's me. And a mage, did you hear?"

"And a woman," he manages.

"Oh." She considers her own cleavage. "Apparently so."

He's going to die.

He's going to die, and it's going to be her fault, and Leliana is laughing like an idiot.

_Maker above have mercy. _


	2. Awesome

As the weeks trickle by, things settle into a pattern and they both begin to change.

Maybe it's the loss of Duncan, or the entire debacle at Ostagar, or the vast, shapeless darkness that seems to yawn in all directions. Maybe it's the darkspawn. It doesn't matter, really. With doom hanging just over their heads like an anvil ready to fall at any moment, there's a sense of hurrying, of living _now_ because they might not live to see the next month, the next morning, the next hour.

So one minute they're fighting darkspawn on the way back to camp―all business and blood and death―and the next they're tucked around a campfire laughing.

Close one, they tell each other. But not too close.

They keep getting better working as a team, which means fewer and fewer brushes with death and more of Leliana brushing Therrin's hair and Alistair doesn't know why it bothers him just that it does and he wishes she would stop.

Honestly.

She's not a _doll_.

Alistair says as much, and Therrin admits that she never had a doll, and that's just unacceptable. He gets her a doll. It's an ugly doll, and looks more like a hurlock than anything, but it _is_ a doll.

He gets a glowy smile and a blushing kiss and thinks he got the better end of the deal.

And for as much as she is Fearsome Warrior Mage sometimes, all spell-flingy and ferocious and leveling darkspawn with lightning and ice, there's just so much she's never seen or done or even _heard_ of.

Being the romantic soul that he is Alistair determines to remedy that, and sets out to give her the world one piece at a time.

The books go over well―things she never got at the Tower, like books of poetry (and one of them he barely looks at before he gives it to Therrin, and it turns out to be a book of love poems―she turns pink and he pretends that it was intentional instead of a complete and very lucky accident). Only… books seem to demand her attention, which means that she's not paying attention to him, and he feels like an idiot interrupting her reading to say _hey, no one's looking, can I kiss you again?_

Not that there isn't kissing already.

Which is, you know…

_Awesome_.

And there is a snowball fight (it isn't even winter, and he was only trying to describe it when she just made snow like it was nothing, and it's a little humbling to ask a girl to make you a handful of snow when you both know you're just going to walk three paces and throw it at her head.) There is ribbon candy that's sweet and sour, there is music, there is Leliana attempting to teach them some Orlesian dance―and Therrin takes to it better than he does, but Therrin isn't doing it in heavy armor.

It's the kitten that does it, though.

It starts with an offhand _oh, I saw a cat in a book once_ that just leaves him shaking his head―

Women, apparently, love kittens. (Something to remember for the future.) When he plunks the little thing into her lap she coos and smiles, and then Leliana curls up close, petting the cat with her chin on Therrin's shoulder, remarking over how handsome the kitten's little stripes are. Even Morrigan―cagey, evil Morrigan―leaves her Lair of Doom, looking warily at the other two women before sitting down at Therrin's other side.

"Do you want to hold him? He's all soft," Therrin says, and just as he can tell Morrigan's about to say something about how she'd rather eat his entrails for breakfast or some such Therrin settles him gently into the witch's hands.

Alistair has to bite back a _no, don't_, because he's got to take the thing back eventually and everyone knows Morrigan can't be trusted with anything. But Morrigan just pets it, looking faintly baffled and sneaking sidelong looks at Therrin under her lashes. "It _is_ quite soft."

And that just _does _it_._

Alistair turns to Sten, all ready to say **_Women_**_, am I right?_, but the big Qunari doesn't look as mountainous and disapproving as usual. Instead he's watching the kitten, looking downright cuddly.

"Clearly, you and I are the only sane ones here," he mutters to Dog, sitting back down at the campfire.

Dog is unhappy about the kitten, and sometimes he's a little hard to understand, but this time his nervousness is clear enough.

"Don't worry," Alistair laughs, poking at the fire. "I hardly think Therrin's going to replace you with a battalion of raging attack kittens. And I _do_ have to give it back."

Dog sighs, relieved.

It isn't long before Therrin crosses the camp―kittenless, because apparently it's Sten's turn―and she sits down beside him, very close, smiling. "Thank you. That was really sweet."

"Well, you know me," he says, feeling rather gallant and only a little awkward. "Slayer of darkspawn, fetcher of kittens. At your service."

She gives a soft laugh and rests her head against him (which _can't_ be comfortable with all that armor) and after a moment he tries to be as casual as he can about putting an arm around her shoulders and pulling her in closer.

And no one is struck by lightning.

Instead she just lets out a happy-sounding sigh, and they pass watch together under the stars that way―and somehow more than the blushing kisses they've shared it feels like something official, like this is a real, honest-to-goodness _Thing_ instead of just some inexpert flirting and making eyes, and that's…

That's pretty awesome, too.

-oOo-

Being drunk is _awesome_.

Or at least it seems that way at the time, in Redcliffe, with Bann Teagan eyeing him warily and the room feeling pleasantly off-balance.

Redcliffe.

He _loves_ Redcliffe!

And Bann Teagan, who is really a stand-up guy.

And ale.

He _definitely_ loves ale.

And he even loves Morrigan for a moment as she approaches with crossed arms and an arched brow, giving him her best disdainful smirk. "Oh, and you're _drunk_. Therrin's going to be terribly impressed."

"Morrigan! Come have some ale. It's lovely. Frothy and very ale-ish."

"_No_," she says, and, "Thank you." In a tone that says _suck poison and die._

Her loss.

"You're so pretty," he complains, and Morrigan looks as though he's grown a second head. "Or you would be, if you smiled more often. Or… _ever_. It would distract people from you being a total bitch."

"Alistair." This from Bann Teagan, disapproving. If he knew Morrigan he'd understand.

"_There_ you are." And Therrin is there, looking harried and tired.

"I'm still mad at you," he manages, wishing she'd stop swaying. It makes it hard to concentrate. "You're bad. A very bad mage. Mage. Maaaage. Funny word, innit? Maaaaa-"

"Mage, yes," she sighs. "I'm familiar with the word. Are… you're drunk, aren't you?"

"No," he lies. Then amends: "not enough."

She sighs again, and it irritates him. "You could have tried," he grumbles, rallying his resentment because she is a _bad mage_ and a _bad person_ and he is angry with her for very good reasons. "You should have tried harder."

"Honestly, are you so eager to hand her over to the templars?" Morrigan bites out, and he wishes she would go away. "They'd have taken one look at her in connection with the words 'blood magic' and she'd be dead. Is that what you want, hmm? Not to mention that it would have been two more nights that Redcliffe would have had to defend itself while we traveled to the Circle, and that's only _if_ we'd been successful―and how many more people do you think would have died in those two nights? What's it to be, Alistair? Are you going to throw around blame and mope like a child, or give in to logic?"

"Oh, go _away_, Morrigan. I need…" He can't remember, just then, until he does. "I need more ale."

Bann Teagan looks uncomfortable. "I think you've had enough."

"Come on," Therrin says, pulling on his elbow. "Let's get you out of here."

And the stars look warm and happy swimming up in the dark-black sky, and he leans on a fencepost as he walks―no, not a fencepost, Therrin, who is definitely not a fencepost and looks very unhappy and who may have been crying.

"Sorry. About Jowan," he manages.

"He brought it on himself," she says quietly, and she isn't looking at him which is alright because he doesn't think his face is working quite right. "Sorry about Connor."

Alistair makes a noise. "I just… I'd thought you would be more sy… sympa…"

"Sympathetic?"

"_That's_ the word. I thought you'd be more sympathetic to one of your own kind."

She stops walking, abruptly, and he doesn't and nearly falls, and when he looks at her she is irritated. "My own _kind_?"

"Mages," he explains uselessly, and he can tell that's the wrong answer because she looks disappointed. "Um. People. I meant people. Did I _say_ mages? Hard to tell, the words sound so alike."

And it's a jumble of awkwardness and irritation and the unmistakable taste of his foot being crammed in his mouth, and it's a profound relief when she sighs, rolls her eyes to the heavens, and thrusts out a hand. "Therrin."

He shakes it. "Alistair. Pleased to meet you." And then, as he leans on her again and they start back for the castle: "You're not a bad mage."

She glances up at him. "Oh?"

"You're nice. To everyone," he says, considering. "I like you. You think I'm funny."

"You _are_ funny."

"See? Like that. Very nice. And you smell nice, too."

She glances up at him again. "Have you been smelling me?"

There is an uncomfortable moment when words won't come out before they all sort of burst out in a wordy, lettery rush: "Smelling? No. Maybe. Definitely not. Yes." And she's laughing, and he can't hear it but he can feel it beside him and it's sort of wonderful. "Just when you're close. And then it's roses and rain and happy things. You're not mad? Please don't be mad. I won't smell you again."

Therrin sighs but she's still laughing. "We need to get you in bed so you can sleep this off."

And that's an excellent plan. "Yes," he says decisively, clapping his hands together, "_bed_. Steamy bits. I knew my wit and charm would win you over."

She's still laughing, and maybe that's not promising, but at least she's _laughing_.

Priorities.

Back at the castle there is a bed, a real, actual bed, and he flops onto it like a great overgrown boy. Only he hasn't let go of Therrin and so she gets pulled on top of him.

Which―hey, awesome.

"_Goodnight_, Alistair," she mutters, starting to pull away and _ow_ her knees have bones in them.

"No, wait," he insists, because this is serious and she's smiling and he needs her to concentrate. "This is important." And when she stops: "So… Leliana."

Therrin laughs a little. "What about Leliana?"

"I think she likes you," he rambles, hoping this doesn't sound as pathetic in words as it did in his head. "And not _likes you_ like a sister, or a friend, or like a Chantry priestess or anything, I mean I think she looks at you like you're a pair of shoes she'd like to put on and walk around in for a while."

Which is a weird metaphor, come to think. Therrin looks like she's trying not to laugh at him. See? She's nice. "We're just friends," she says clearly, as though he's simple or a dog. "That's all."

Which, he thinks, not that the idea in theory of Therrin and Leliana… doing… _things_…

Wait, what?

He was talking about something else, wasn't he? Oh. Friends. "Does _she_ know that?"

And he expects Therrin to sigh, or maybe roll her eyes, or anything except what she does, which is shift the inches back on top of him and kiss him hard.

And… um. It's nice, it's more than nice, it's _really really_ more than nice except that he's not sure where to put his hands without getting struck down by the Maker or slapped by Therrin. But the middle bit by her waist seems safe enough and he goes with that.

And it just… doesn't end.

Which is awesome.

Until it does, and she pulls back to look at him. "You don't have to worry about Leliana," she says firmly, all seriousness.

And sense and reason and all those unimportant things have fled but he can still somehow talk. "Right."

"_You're_ the one I… like." And she shakes her head a little as though that's not quite right, and she loses the intense, serious look.

He swallows hard, trying to remember words, because words are useful and they let you say things. "Got it, yes. I, um. _Like_ you too."

She climbs off, much to his regret and the regret of some pieces of his anatomy which were just beginning to wake up and take notice. "Goodnight, Alistair."

He blinks. "You're leaving? You're leaving me _here_, by myself in the castle in loneliness and drunkitude?" She only laughs. "I was wrong about you," he grumbles. "You're mean."

Therrin's already gone.

Alistair snickers to himself as he rolls out of bed with the grace and stealth of a one-legged bronto, because she only said _goodnight_ and didn't order him to sleep and he knows where the kitchens are, and cheese, and she cannot stop him.

Because he is _awesome_.


	3. Revelations

Goldanna is… not what he was hoping for.

And he hardly knows what he _was_ hoping for, really, just knows that that shrew who'd all but chased them out with a broom isn't it. There's a sick hollow feeling in his chest, walking away, and he'd probably try to go drown his sorrows with a barrel or two of ale if Therrin wasn't holding onto his hand scowling, looking a bit like a one-woman thunderstorm.

"I wish you'd just let me…" she grumbles, trailing off and frowning darkly. "Freeze her hair off. Set her smallclothes on fire. Something. I can do that, you know."

It's an interesting mental image, anyway. "Can you?"

She growls a faintly affirmative noise, glancing over her shoulder at Goldanna's house as though she could burn it down with a look.

Maybe she could.

"That'd be useful," Alistair says, only running at half-normal enthusiasm. "Try it against the darkspawn."

Therrin considers. "Do darkspawn _wear_ smallclothes?"

Ugh. "I don't want to know. But still—handy." At her quizzical look, he continues, mood buoying a little, "Come on. You think _any_ army's going to be all that interested in fighting with everyone's underthings on fire?"

She grins a little at the thought, shooting him an unaccountably sheepish look. "I'm sorry your sister was… not very nice. It's her loss." Her hand tightens in his. "_I_ think you're perfectly wonderful."

And there it is again, without any warning at all—that glorious soaring feeling that makes him grin like an idiot, that makes Morrigan make retching sounds behind his back and Leliana giggle, and in the middle of the Market District he smiles and slings an arm around her shoulder, ignoring the looks they get and feeling almost unbearably smug. "_Do_ you, now?"

Therrin seems mostly oblivious, as matter-of-fact as always. "Yes."

"Well," he answers, because if she needs it spelled out, he'll damn well spell it out for her. "I think you're perfectly wonderful, too."

And this time it's Dog who makes retching sounds, and the moment's a little spoiled by Therrin breaking away in concern when her mabari vomits up something he ate earlier, but still.

Perfectly wonderful is…

Awesome.

-oOo-

The Deep Roads are a nightmare.

Therrin's just too new to really feel it, but Alistair can sense them—darkspawn, _everywhere_, and on top of the dark and the strange beasts that come from nowhere and attack in ridiculous numbers, it's like someone's screaming in both his ears, all the time, and he can't get away from it no matter what he does.

He would never say it, but every now and again he wishes he'd stayed up on the surface.

But that would require Therrin being down here without him, and that's not going to happen, so he just grits his teeth and follows her further into the darkness, hand so tight on his sword that it's long past aching.

He does _not_ want to make camp down here. It's never as quiet as it should be; the noises echo off the stone, twisted and warping and snaking into his ears, odd hisses, the steam and bubble of some underground hot spring, monsters lurking in the dark that just haven't got around to trying to kill them yet.

But they're exhausted, all of them, and finally even the dwarf is ready to call it a day, or whatever they call it down here, with no sunlight.

Which is, of course, when another wave of darkspawn attacks. It's another grim fight to the death (fortunately not _their_ deaths, which is always a bonus) but finally the last hurlock makes a mad rush for Therrin. Alistair can't quite catch up, and it startles her and there, she punches it in the face, just like he showed her, and there's a moment's crowing triumph in his mind of _that's my girl!_ before he catches up and runs it through.

It drops immediately, and he feels oddly like a cat delivering a dead bird. Here, have this horrible twitching darkspawn, I killed it just for you.

"Thanks," she manages, a little breathless. And: "Ow."

Punching darkspawn is apparently not a good idea. But Oghren actually chuckles for the first time and the gloomy mood breaks, just a bit. Once they set up a makeshift camp and get everyone patched up it's his sleep shift first, and he closes his eyes and tries to ignore the horror of the Deep Roads long enough for a nap, at least.

It's impossible.

Being down here makes his skin crawl, makes something in his soul whine that he's taking a nap in his own grave. It makes him want to run screaming for the surface, for light and air and everything that is not death and inevitability and doom.

"You alright?" Therrin looks worried.

"Lovely," he returns immediately, only a little shaky. "Never better."

"Liar."

But there's no heat in the accusation and without an invitation or anything she curls up beside him on the paltry, ancient little bedroll. "You look awful."

"Wow, you're such a flatterer."

She only looks at him, and slips an arm around his body, and he tells himself that he's comforting _her_ when he returns the gesture and that he's not doing it because he desperately needs something to hold on to.

"It's just… down here," he admits at last, muffled. "It's worse than I thought it'd be as it _is_. The thought of coming down here alone in thirty years or so…" Being torn apart by darkspawn, standing alone before hordes and hordes of them with nothing but a blade and a shield, never seeing light again…

He'll do it, he knows he will, even though the thought makes his heart constrict and his stomach rebel, but Therrin frowns. "You're not coming down here _alone_." He must be making some sort of weird face at that, because she nearly laughs. "I'm a Warden too. I don't know if you remember that part. I think you were busy trying to find a pretty dress."

Ha.

"Well. You know. I've got some six months on you," he says carefully, because if she's saying what he thinks she's saying…

She is. "Doesn't matter," she says firmly.

Except that it does. "Six months," he insists, though he doesn't know why he's arguing.

Therrin's stubborn. "I don't care." She pauses like she's thinking about what to say next, which is… well, not either of their strong suits, really, this whole stopping to think business, but: "What kind of a six months would that be, knowing you'd already gone? Knowing you'd come down here to face these things alone?" She shakes her head, scowling a little. "We fight better together anyway. That's the point, right? Come back down and kill all the darkspawn you can?"

He nods—for once, lost for words.

"Well," she continues, sounding mollified. "Then it makes sense to do it together."

And for some reason it's _not_ making sense, though all the pieces are there. Alistair feels as though he's missing something, some cipher that'll sort out all the rest. "You don't have to—I mean, Maker _knows_, I don't want to do this by myself, but if there's—"

But warmth is already blossoming in his mind, soothing as sunlight and air, and she cups his face in her hands and they're warm. "Alistair, I'm not going to leave you alone at the end," Therrin says quietly, and it sounds like a vow and it breaks his heart a little but he doesn't know why. "If I've got life left in me to do it, I promise, I'll be here, and we'll do this thing together."

Peace breaks over him in a rush of unexpected gratitude, joy and relief and—oh _there_, just there, the final piece clicks into place and with the least convenient timing in the whole world he realizes that _this_ is what falling in love feels like.

"You're _crazy_," he manages, but it comes out admiring and a little desperate. "I mean, in a good way, don't get me wrong—" And then thank the Maker above she laughs and he kisses her and it's perfect, somehow. "I'm in love with you," he blurts, all unthinking, and… damn, he hadn't meant to just spill his guts all over her like that. Come on now, we're in a dank and nasty cave with… with monsters, and darkspawn, and buckets and buckets of doom.

Maybe romance _is_ dead.

Maybe he's killed it.

But her eyes go all soft and she doesn't seem to care about the location. "Oh good," she manages, half-despairing. "Here I thought it was just me."

_Bwuh?_

Which is as articulate as his thoughts get, for the moment, but she stays close as she keeps watch and everything feels better, somehow. It feels… right.

_Well_, he thinks as he drifts off, watching her watch the Deep Roads, _I guess that settles it, then._

When he sleeps he dreams of the pair of them, standing together before darkness, and somehow it doesn't seem like an end at all.


	4. Moves

Alistair does _not_ like Zevran.

For one thing—_hello_, assassin! Tried to kill us, anyone remember? Except that no one seems to care but him, all going about their business and letting the assassin near the food and not putting off anywhere close to the level of suspicious disapproval Alistair would be comfortable with.

And for another thing, the elf's just… _smarmy_. Every time he turns left Zevran's spitting out some new innuendo, leering at everyone and Therrin in particular all knowing and… and lecherous, and suddenly Chantry manners seem backward and inadequate and Alistair feels even more like a fool than usual.

It does absolutely nothing for his temper.

At first he tries to blow off steam by stamping around and muttering to himself under the guise of collecting firewood (a good enough excuse, the mountains are _cold_), but that ends the first time he comes back with an arm full of wood to find Leliana and Zevran both practically in Therrin's lap and Zevran uncorking a bottle of wine.

_Oh come **on**_, he thinks, and dumps the firewood unceremoniously to the ground, announcing at high volume that can he please see their fearless leader a moment? "So," Therrin begins at the very edge of camp, bright-eyed and pink-cheeked with cold. "What did you need?"

Alistair casts about helplessly for a moment, tongue-tied because he had absolutely nothing to say in the first place except for _would you please not let Zevran and Leliana do things to you?_ which, he fears, will not go over well if she even gets his meaning in the first place. "Here," he manages at last, twisting a pine cone from a nearby tree and holding it out. "This is for you."

Therrin turns it over in her hands a moment, baffled. "Ah… thanks?"

"It's a pine cone," he explains uselessly. "A cone from a pine tree."

"All right." She glances up at him, skeptical and a little worried. "Is this… I mean."

_Have I ever given any indication that I wanted a prickly round crushable thing?_

_Why this pine cone? We're standing in an entire forest of pines._

_Are you perhaps just a little mad?_

But thankfully she doesn't say any of that, just considers the pine cone resting in her hand, puzzled and quiet as though trying desperately to figure out why, of all things, he would give her a pine cone (and admittedly, this is a fairly far fall from the rose but a man has to work with what he's got) and finally he clears his throat. "It... er. They're pretty when they're on fire."

"Oh," she breathes immediately, looking relieved. It occurs to him belatedly that she was trying to figure out if the pine cone had some sort of significance she never learned about locked away in the Circle Tower and he feels like a complete and total idiot. "Well. All right, then." And thankfully she's smiling again, and they hold hands on the way back to the campfire and sure enough, she thinks it's very pretty as it burns, going orange and falling apart.

How much of that's just her being nice, he doesn't know. After a while she yawns and shivers her way into her tent for a quick nap before their watch.

As soon as she's out of sight Alistair sighs, dropping his head into a hand because _pine cones_, _honestly_.

Nice job, hero.

And really, he's kind of falling behind in the whole gifts department because he's given her a rose and some books and half a day with a kitten and (no, we're not going to think about the pine cone, let's just forget it entirely) and she keeps giving things to everyone and somehow keeps finding these fantastic little statuettes for him. (Not _dolls_, he keeps correcting Leliana, who only giggles, dolls are for little girls and these are clearly statuettes). Without giving it much thought he pulls them out and lines them up, admiring the way the firelight flickers along the edges of the dragon's wings. He's so lost in thought he doesn't notice at first that Zevran is standing in front of him until he glances up and nearly gets a look up Zevran's leathers and _ugh_.

Zevran smiles, an eyebrow quirked. "Aren't you a little old to be playing with dolls?"

_I hate you_, Alistair thinks, but only says, "They're not dolls, they're statuettes. Obviously."

Zevran makes a noncommittal noise and sits down, too-graceful and too close and still smirking a bit which only intensifies the uncharitableness of Alistair's uncharitable thoughts.

Go away, go away, go _away_.

"You have quite a collection," Zevran continues idly, looking over the statuettes and picking up a runestone with a flick of his fingers, making it trip along the back of his knuckles in a way Alistair cannot entirely hate because at the same time that he doesn't want anyone touching his stuff he can't help but think _hey, that's kind of awesome, I wonder if I could do that._

Not that he's going to ask, and not that he's going to try _now_.

(He'll give it a shot later, in his tent, where no one can see and laugh.)

"Rather odd, no? For an almost-templar such as yourself to take such an interest in pretty, arcane things." Zevran smirks at him in a sidelong flash of too-sharp smile as he sets the runestone back onto the ground. "And you have something conspicuously missing from your collection, I'm afraid."

Well yes, a golem statuette, but they haven't been able to find one. In any case, from the gleam in Zevran's eye, Alistair gets the feeling that's not what Zevran's talking about. "You think so, do you?"

"I do." Zevran chuckles. "Otherwise I believe our dear mage wouldn't be shivering in that tent alone. It is _very_ cold up here." He looks around the campsite with undisguised distaste. "Before I go offer to, say, warm her up? I would like to know my chances of being thrown off the mountain. I haven't come so far to die so ingloriously." Another grin, quick and white and not very friendly at all. "Battle against the darkspawn will do, of course, but tossed naked a mile down into a gorge?" He _tsks_. "I would rather stay in one piece, thank you."

The image of Therrin being warmed up is… distracting, and the image of her being warmed up by Zevran is just… Alistair can't think of any words just then except a large, loud _no_, and Zevran only smiles wider.

"You can understand my confusion, of course. It doesn't seem that you have… ah, how to say it? Made your move?"

"I will," Alistair growls back, picking up his statuettes and pulling them out of Zevran's reach. "Moves… will be made. Soon. And with much… movement. So."

"Ah." And Zevran gets to his feet, too quick and looking altogether too smug. "Very well. Good luck, little templar."

"I'm not—"

But the stupid Antivan just laughs, and Alistair grumbles as though a tiny thunderstorm has moved in and is hovering just over his head and his head alone. He tries not to think about _that_ because love is easy enough, but _that_ seems much, much harder.

Hard.

_Gah!_


	5. It

Moves will be made, he'd said. Soon.

But he doesn't even get a chance to make an attempt for days because there's… well, there's a Blight on, after all, and the temple of Andraste to survive with more insane cultists than he'd ever have wanted to meet, and yes, Andraste this and Andraste that but it all feels very surreal.

Especially the dragon. He would never have thought that they would actually _slay a dragon_ but they do it and it is an entirely new level of awesome, and he wishes painfully that Duncan were alive so that he could tell him about it.

In the Gauntlet, it all becomes utterly real.

There's pointed questions from the Guardian that make Therrin and Alistair squirm and Leliana and Oghren angry_, _there's the specter of Jowan, there's riddles and puzzles that make his stomach twist and his head spin, so much so that at the final test he barely sneaks a glance when they all undress and walk through the flames. (Though, really, a little glance can't hurt and anyway, he already knew the shape of her from the robes but this is… different. Maybe it's being in the temple, he doesn't know, but she's determined and serious and comes humble to the Urn and though he wouldn't have thought it possible he gets that falling-in-love feeling all over again.)

There is a moment with the Ashes, just a moment of the presence of something vast and holy, and on the way back to camp they are unusually quiet.

Well, halfway back. After a while it becomes too much for Leliana to bear and she babbles out her excitement, going on about the Urn as if they all hadn't been right there with her, but really in the scheme of things it isn't a big deal—he looks to Therrin and she shrugs and that's that. The sun will rise, the seasons will change, Leliana will chatter. Nothing to get excited about.

But at watch that night with the world gone quiet and a light snow falling it's as private as things really get, and something niggles at his mind that if there were ever a time for moves this might be a good one.

Except that he can't think of a single thing to say.

_How about those Ashes?_

_So, I noticed in the temple that your backside is very nice._

_Can I do things to you with my manly bits?_

Not. Helping.

"Alistair, are you alright?"

Oh good, she looks worried, because that's just the sort of thing that drives a woman mad with desire is worry—not that he'd know, not that he'll _ever_ know, because he is never, ever going to be able to speak from personal experience.

"I'm fine," he manages, too cheerily. "Lovely. Never better. How're you?"

"Cold," she admits, forehead still wrinkled in concern. "You look flushed."

"Yes, well, thinking about you naked does that to me," he blurts, all unthinking, and _oh_, Maker and Andraste both, if there's any mercy under heaven the ground will open right now and swallow him whole.

It doesn't. So much for that. _And here we were just all pious, too_, he grumbles vaguely heavenward.

But Therrin blushes and her mouth is twitching, and when he dares more than a glance over she's shaking with suppressed laughter and he hates her, just for the slightest moment, because this isn't funny and laughing at his embarrassment is mean. "Right," he begins, voice cracking, "I'm going to pretend I didn't say that, and you can pretend you didn't hear that, and as soon as this Blight thing is over we'll part ways and never ever speak of this again and—"

"Alistair." She's grinning at his shoulder and there's nothing mean about it, and it makes him stop, still vaguely suspicious until she goes on, "It's all right. Really."

"It is?" And it can't be attractive for a voice to get squeaky like that but she nudges into his shoulder just the same.

"Yes. It is."

And this time she kisses him—but just for a moment, since, you know, on watch and certain death just waiting around every corner and not a good time to get distracted by… by…

Hey look, at this angle he can see down her robes.

But it only lasts a moment—it is ridiculously, _incredibly_ cold up here and they break apart and she bundles into her cloak pitifully for the rest of watch.

It's very late by the time Oghren takes over the watch. Even though Alistair's tired and still feels like his ears are probably burning he walks Therrin the little distance to her tent because he is _not_ a giant lecher. He is a gentleman and walking darkspawn-slaughtering mages back to their frozen little tents is what gentlemen _do_.

He's almost sure he read it in a book, once.

But Therrin stands there shivering instead of going in, and she looks around the camp uncertainly, and then looks at him even more uncertainly, and in Alistair's admittedly limited experience her looking uncertain is cause for alarm. But: "I'm going to go in my tent, now," she says quietly, which seems rather obvious because yes, it's night, and they're standing outside her tent, and going inside one's tent to sleep at night is the usual course of action. But then she looks at him directly, less uncertain, and for some reason that's what makes his stomach wobble. Therrin heaves a deep breath. "Would you like to come with me?"

The world spins, or maybe it's his head, he can't tell. "With you? In your tent?" And it comes out a little incredulous which is a bad thing because she's cringing, already rethinking and he doesn't want her to rethink and retreat. And she would, too, they could both try to laugh it off, shrug and say never mind and go on, and Alistair knows with as much clarity as he's got that saying no is the _last_ thing in the world he wants, now or ever. But… "Um, yes? Of course! I mean. Sure." It's a little late to play it casual but he's grasping at straws, here. "I could do that."

Therrin looks skeptical and he hopes—he really, really hopes—that she isn't already sorry she asked, but she doesn't say anything else before she offers an uncertain smile and ducks into the tent.

Gathering his courage in both hands and taking a deep breath he follows as though plunging under the surface of the sea, and there's something tickling at the back of his brain _so much for moves, hero_, _you've been outmaneuvered by a **girl**._

-oOo-

The next time he's in Denerim, Alistair thinks, he's going to shout for a very long time at whoever it was who wrote that one book he may have looked at (on accident!) about… _this_.

Sex.

_Thing_.

Because nothing in anything he'd ever heard, or anything any of the other Grey Wardens had ever joked about had ever been particularly informative, and everything he read (on accident!) in that one trashy, stupid, absolutely wrong book had given him any sort of preparation for… _this_.

Awkward enough to crawl inside the little tent and just sit there, wondering what to do and what to look at, and it's somehow made a thousand times worse when the silence hangs between them. Finally Therrin sighs and does the whole bracing thing as though she's preparing for battle, fussing with her robes and yanking them over her head. And it should be easier after that and not harder (harder, ha!) so he manages somehow to get out of his armor, determined to plow (plow, ha!) ahead with things because this is supposed to be fun, right? And miraculous and… something. Incredible and… and beautiful, and terribly, _terribly_ romantic.

It isn't.

Somehow in the space of thirty seconds he manages to pull her hair—twice—and she manages to knee him in the _groin _on accident, which almost puts an end to things right there except for the fact that he is determined, utterly determined, not to run away screaming from this.

Maker's breath, no one had ever told him it would be so _awkward_.

But the sight of breasts is nice enough encouragement, and yes, he's fairly sure _that_ is supposed to go _there_, and he loves her and she loves him and that'll make everything work, right?

Wrong.

And he _thinks_ it's okay, but just at the very beginning of nice feelings when he's trying as hard (hard _again_, ha! and so, okay, perhaps he's just a little hysterical) as he can to be careful she hisses in pain and digs her nails into his forearms and _ow_.

"Are you—"

"Don't move," she orders, voice taut and low. Telling him not to move now—_now_, of all the times in the world, propped up and… well… _joined_—is like telling him to hold back the sun but he does it anyway, and it seems like a long time that she's quiet, eyes squeezed closed and teeth gritted.

"I'll just be… up here, then," he manages faintly. "Thinking about—"

"_Don't_ say cheese."

But then he can't help but think of cheese, which is awkward on an entirely new scale, and Therrin bursts into horrible, hopeless giggles which is… which is really not how he'd envisioned this at all. "Stop. Stop it!"

But she can't, apparently, and he's not allowed to move but giggling is moving which is cheating_, _and so at the same time he's near out of his _mind_ with feeling he's utterly horrified. "Stop giggling," he mutters, wondering vaguely if he'll survive this because it seems unlikely. "They'll _hear you_. And they'll think you're laughing at me and they'll think that means I'm really bad at this so just—"

But she's still giggling (and moving, which is still cheating) and manages, "But we are really bad at this."

And hey, ow, that stings a bit. Granted, yes, this isn't exactly the way he'd hoped everything would go (there's a distinct lack of swooning and he does not feel half so invincible as he'd expected) but this is his first time and it's supposed to be memorable and beautiful and _romantic_, and just as he's thinking, _well hey, laughter is relaxing, maybe we can salvage this,_ the back-and-forth shaking becomes just that little bit too much and…

Aaaand, it's over.

_Fantastic_.

And when he sighs she stops giggling—_finally_—and oh look, there's a giant Awkward, and just as he's beginning to wonder if he might be better off tossing himself off the side of the mountain or, at the very least, retreating to his own tent to lick his wounds in private, he realizes that he doesn't have to leave. All right, he thinks, sex is like pine cones and we will never speak of this again, but as far as things go having a naked woman curled up close in the dark is actually pretty nice.

In the morning, they try again.

It is, somehow, _just_ as bad.

It's nearly worse because he expects it to be better and doesn't know why it isn't—just that when it's over she's got that frowny, problem-solving look on and is gnawing at her bottom lip in thought. "Maybe next time—"

"_Next_ time?" he interrupts, a little flabbergasted because if ever there was a clear sign from the Maker that he, personally, was Never Supposed to Have Sex Ever, two enormous failures in a row seem to be it. "You'd really want to do that again? After…?"

"Well." She tilts her head, contemplative. "There has to be a _reason_ people do this, after all."

And—ouch. Just… ouch. And there isn't the slightest shred of malice in her so he knows she isn't trying to be cruel but still, manly pride broken and dying over here.

Therrin cringes at his expression and offers a mumbled apology, but the whole situation's just too awful all around. They dress in silence and slink out of the tent, going in opposite directions until Leliana laughs—and then stops at their expressions. "Oh, _Amell_."

Without another word she takes Therrin by the hand and leads her off into the pines, and at the campfire Oghren is drinking—already—and when Dog raises his head Alistair gets the distinct impression that he's being laughed at by a mabari and it does nothing for his mood at all.

"Here. Drink this and sit."

When Alistair turns to look Oghren's holding out a bottle, expectant, and he begins to protest but Oghren looks annoyed (and when Oghren gets annoyed, things tend to die), so he sits but doesn't drink.

The not-drinking lasts for half a minute, when it becomes clear that Oghren intends to fill in some of the gaps of Alistair's Chantry education in the most vulgar and lurid terms possible, but he reminds himself forcibly that Oghren was married and knows these things and that _any_ information is better than no information at all. With his ears flaming red and his head in his hands Alistair cringes his way through the least likely lesson of his life.

-oOo-

Oddly enough, it helps.

Somewhere between Haven and Redcliffe there's another camp, another watch and the awkwardness of spontaneously blurting _Oghren said_ and _Leliana told me to—_

Third time is, apparently, the charm.

(The fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh times aren't half bad, either, and he can ignore Oghren's snickering because now that they're getting the hang of it, it's _awesome._)

And Redcliffe…

Redcliffe is best not thought about at all, because while it's incredible that Eamon's alive and more or less well the prince thing keeps coming up and it makes him sick just to think about.

So: he doesn't think about it.

Seems for the best.

Back in Denerim for an afternoon Oghren takes Therrin to the Pearl (which seems sneaky, very sneaky) and she comes back with a book.

"Only you," he mutters at first, "only you would go to a brothel and come back with a _book_." And then he glances over her shoulder and _oh sweet merciful Andraste_ it's full of illustrations of people doing… doing _things_ and Alistair nearly yelps and drops his supper before he retreats a safe distance to the other side of the fire and waits for the blushing to stop.

"Not just a book," Oghren leers. "An _education_."

Which helps by exactly nothing, and watching her read the book is an exercise in painful curiosity.

At a particular page, she frowns and tilts her head left.

Then right.

Then left again.

Then she turns the book upside down, tilting her head the other way and looking baffled and Maker help him he can't help but wonder what in the name of all that's holy is on that blasted page. He doesn't have to wonder long. Therrin crosses the camp and flops down beside him and pushes the book over for him to see. "Do you want to try this?"

_I don't even know what that _is, he almost says, and then it becomes clear and all that comes out is, "Uhm?" And he swallows hard. "I think that's _illegal_ in Ferelden, actually," he manages at last, faintly and trying to ignore his immediate, embarrassing reaction to the drawing.

Therrin frowns at the picture. "Oh. Why?"

"I don't know," he admits, except that it seems like the sort of thing that _ought_ to be illegal.

"I'll ask Zevran," she murmurs, already lost in thought—but of all the things in the world he doesn't need, Zevran talking to Therrin about… _it_… is really, really high on the list and so before she can get too far he's up and snagging her by the hand, pulling her into the tent because they're bright people, right? They can figure it out for themselves.

Except that the tent isn't quite big enough.

But with the addition of some perspective and the return of their usual easy humor (and thank the Maker for _that_ because he was half-afraid for a while that _it_ was going to ruin everything they already had entirely) everything is much, much better, and as they head west to the Circle Tower he _does_ manage to do the whole romantic thing (a couple of times!) and it's even better than he'd thought it'd be.


	6. Tower

Therrin does _not_ want to go back to the Circle Tower.

And Alistair can tell, even though she tries to play it off—as they head west she tries very hard not to look west like she could avoid looking at the Tower altogether. It's impossible, though. The Tower is visible for miles and miles and is right there in front of them and it's not exactly small.

"What'd you _do?_" he asks one night in camp, as she frowns at the contents of the cooking-pot. "Because there's 'hey, can we not stop by the Tower' and then there's 'Holy Maker _please_ don't make me go to the Circle Tower' and you're really giving off the 'Holy Maker' kind of feel."

Therrin sits back on her heels and her face goes oddly blank, in that particular look that comes up every time the Circle Tower is mentioned. "You mean _other_ than helping a blood mage escape? Because…"

"Oh, no, I _get_ that," he interrupts, groping for words and hoping this doesn't turn out wrong. The subject of mages can be a little touchy sometimes and he doesn't want to make it worse. "What I mean is," he goes on, trying to pull ideas out of thin air because he hardly knows what he means, "you seem very _avoid_-y."

Therrin almost laughs. "Avoid-y?"

"Definitely." Alistair nods. "Very avoid-y. So what'd you do? Cast a spell and turn all the water into pudding? Get caught making fun of the First Enchanter? Use the Knight-Commander's smallclothes for a flag?"

"Oh, _Maker_," she groans, burying her head in her hands. "Alistair…"

"You _did_, didn't you?"

She looks up and considers him a moment, fondly, in that way that makes his heart swell and his insides feel funny. "Promise me something."

"Anything," he swears immediately.

Therrin hesitates. "If… if it's possible _at all_—can we spend as little time as possible at the Tower? I'm really hoping we can get in, talk to Irving, and get right back out."

It hits Alistair like a charging bronto: Therrin is _afraid_.

And yes, sure, fear is sort of a big part of their job, because darkspawn are ugly as sin and when they coming rushing for you howling for your blood, it's a little frightening—but this is an entirely different kind of fear and Alistair doesn't know what to make of it. But it's easy enough to say, "Of course," and nod affirmatively every time she repeats it like a mantra as they head west, ever west, walking into the sunset on their somewhat-less-than-glorious-so-far mission.

It eases for a little bit when they get to the Spoiled Princess and Oghren grumbles out something about an old flame in the area and gets actually embarrassed. Alistair hadn't thought that Oghren and the word _embarrassed_ had ever been associated before, and so because Therrin isn't going to deny any of her friends anything, they go looking for Felsi.

And find her.

She is… adorable.

Granted, it's the kind of adorable that you'd probably get kicked in the shins for saying out loud, but she's funny and pretty cute and Oghren puffs out his chest and struts, and Alistair tries really, _really_ hard not to laugh when Therrin mimics his posture and swagger. They talk a big game about being heroes, too smooth to stick around, and privately Alistair is afraid at first that it was so over-the-top that they'd ruined it but as they leave he catches Felsi watching them go, and it seems a good sign.

Oghren is grateful, which is new, and he'd always been gregarious before, but that night he's downright effusive. He punches Alistair in the arm and declares him _alright_, and he gives a round of drinks to everyone.

When it dies down a little Alistair overhears him talking to Therrin—and he isn't trying to eavesdrop, really, it's just that Oghren isn't quiet and camp isn't private. Oghren tells her she's like family and they have a moment, and Alistair creeps off to his tent to give them what time to themselves he can.

He isn't alone for long.

"Hi," Therrin says flatly, sitting down ramrod-straight and looking vaguely panicked.

"Hi, yourself," he manages, propping up on one elbow and frowning at her in the dim light. "Are you all right?"

"No," she admits readily. "I'm not."

He almost asks what's wrong but she glances west— and there's no way she could see it through the tent, but she cringes at the specter of the Tower anyway, and so Alistair doesn't say anything.

But then she's yanking at her clothes, unwinding the sash around her waist at the same time she kicks off her shoes and faster than Alistair would've thought—not that he's complaining, you know_, at all_—she's naked and pouncing, hovering above him on the bedroll.

"Wow," he manages, a little thickly. "You know, Morrigan said something about the Tower being a giant phallic sy—"

"I don't want to think about the Tower." She leans in for a kiss, but pulls away before he can get his head together enough to respond. "Distract me?" she asks, pulling at his trousers, and it sounds like _please_ and this seems to Alistair like a win-win situation, so he does.

It works, anyway. When it's over she curls at his side and sleeps like a rock. Alistair's the one who lies awake in the dark, tracing back might-have-beens and wondering what his life would've been like if Duncan hadn't taken him into the Wardens.

He'd have been a full templar, eventually. He may well have been assigned to the Tower—and then none of this would ever have happened, with the Wardens, with Therrin, with anything.

The thought of how close things had been, how one visit from one man changed the entire course of his life and how utterly miserable he would've been otherwise keeps Alistair awake a long, long time.

Not that the next day is exactly kittens and sunshine.

The boat ride over makes him a little nauseated. The rocking is impossible to adjust to, and even though the wind off the lake is cool the sun is warm and he shouldn't feel like shivering, he does anyway.

Therrin grips the edge of the boat and stares down into the water as they skim across the lake, but the odd, blank look is in place again and it makes the hair at the back of his neck stand up in apprehension. "Hey," he manages, nudging her a little and hoping to break her out of her reverie. "Don't worry about it. We'll run in, talk to the First Enchanter, and run back out."

"Right," she answers dully, distracted and hopeless.

"And if we manage to nick the Knight-Commander's smallclothes on the way out, so much the better, eh?"

She tries to muster a smile, but it never makes it past a grimace.

Alistair can feel it inside the Tower as they climb up the endless steps, something inexpressibly wrong, something powerful and terrible that makes him want to leave. Therrin shudders beside him as though she could shake it off her skin, leaning on her staff as they make the ascent.

"What _is_ that?" he asks finally, when the crawling feeling becomes strong enough to make him jumpy. "Is that normal?"

For all he knows, it could be, but _Maker_ what a place to live. It feels like a prison and it must be his imagination but he thinks he can hear screaming, very far away and reverberating down through the cheerless stones. To think that this was Therrin's home…

No wonder she didn't want to come back.

But when she looks up the stairs she's uncertain. "I…" she grimaces. "No. I don't know. Something doesn't feel right."

And, of course, it isn't.

The templars are hurrying, and running in that armor must be exhausting but they're doing it anyway. This high up Alistair can smell blood and something else. Lyrium, it must be.

There's an awful moment when the Knight-Commander's gaze falls on Therrin and he scowls— and instead of scowling back and demanding answers she freezes, shrinking in place like she could disappear. That, as much as the feeling of bubbling wrongness, pushes Alistair into action. He puts on his best _respect me for I am a Warden_ face and strides up to Knight-Commander Greagoir, asking to speak to the First Enchanter and ignoring the nagging reminder in his brain that it could've been _him_ here, that this could've been his commander, his life.

Therrin only comes around at the mention of Annulment.

"You _can't_," she protests, horrified.

Greagoir frowns at her. "I already have. As soon as we have word from Denerim, we will do as we must."

Oghren scratches his chin. "Ann-_what_ now?"

"Annulment," Therrin answers roughly, losing composure by the moment. "The Right of Annulment. He's asked permission to kill everyone in the Tower."

Oghren harrumphs something and goes thoughtful, watching Alistair and raising an eyebrow.

"Of course we will not allow that," Leliana interrupts quietly, pulling them into a rough huddle and Alistair is suddenly, deeply grateful Morrigan hadn't come.

"I don't…" Therrin begins, wetting her lips and glancing back over her shoulder at the templars. "I'm not exactly unbiased about…"

"Don't be silly," Leliana says, firm and brisk. "We came for the aid of the mages, yes? We will aid them first." She reaches over and takes Therrin's hand, and for once it doesn't make Alistair want to swat her away. "We are with you, Amell."

After that, it's more or less decided, up until the point Greagoir mentions closing the doors and the teeny, tiny, almost insignificant detail of not opening them again. Alistair's brain kicks in and says _no_, but Therrin doesn't protest. It's one more reminder of how foreign her world had been before Duncan had rescued her, that she doesn't even question this. After a few moments to mull it over, she takes a deep, bracing breath. "Right." She crosses her arms, and gives Alistair a determined look. "We shouldn't go in there together."

"Right," he mimics, nervous and trying without much success to take it out on her. "So stay here."

"I mean," she clarifies, "if we both go in there, there's a chance we won't come out. And if that happens, there aren't any other Wardens to take the treaties to—"

"Then _stay here_," he interrupts, vaguely aware that this is their first argument and Maker's _breath_ what awful timing. But he can't back down. Not here, not now.

Therrin hesitates. "I have to go," she argues. "This is my home, these people…" She swallows, looking like it hurts. "I have to go in there."

"You don't think they'll let you out again," Leliana cuts in softly, and it isn't a question.

"I don't _know_."

Therrin doesn't look up and Alistair's gut twists, and from this side of the door he can hear something, unnatural and wailing. "You're not going in there without me," he says, as firmly as he can because she may be the fearless leader but he isn't going to stand there and let her walk in alone.

"Or me," Leliana offers immediately. "We have not come so far together to split up now."

There's a long, hanging moment where Therrin looks at them both—and then finally, thankfully, she nods and Alistair tries not to sigh in relief.

"Oghren," she says, low and hurried, rummaging in her pack and pulling out the leather-wrapped treaties. "If something happens—if it's been a while, and we don't come back out, take these treaties to the el—"

"If you don't come back out," Oghren interrupts, leaning on his axe and eyeing the templars with supreme indifference, "then the rest of us'll go in there to get you. Keep your treaties." When everyone turns to look, he shrugs, completely unconcerned. "What?"

"I… Thank you. Oghren," Therrin manages at last, staring at him.

Oghren shakes his head, giving the big metal door a dark look. "Nobody gets left behind," he grumbles, glancing up at Therrin_. _"Not you, not the kid." Dog barks a low questioning whuff. "Not you either, mutt."

Therrin nods, and it's decided. When the great metal doors close behind them, they sound with a hollow, final clang that seems to shake the Tower itself. Though Therrin shudders and it mirrors the fear eating at his heart, there's nowhere to go but forward.


	7. Dream

Living with Goldanna is wonderful.

She's the perfect sister: she dotes on him, constantly, she makes him his favorite meals and when he plays with his nieces and nephews she looks on fondly, smiling and patient. Goldanna ruffles his hair and when he grins in response she gives him that _look_, as though he's the best thing to ever happen to her.

He knows exactly how that feels; he feels the exact same way about her.

Alistair can't imagine a life without her. For ages, for as long as he could possibly remember, he'd wanted to belong to someone, to have a family, and a place within that family. When his littlest niece climbs up on his knee and presses a sticky kiss to his cheek, begging for a story from her favorite uncle, he realizes that this is the happiest he's ever been.

(He can't quite remember how he came to live with his sister—had she invited him? Was that...?)

(The thought drifts away like a snowflake on the breeze, white on white and disappearing into nothing.)

"You've the healthiest appetite I've ever seen," Goldanna remarks admiringly, setting another plate of mutton in front of him with one hand on her hip. She looks happier these days, and he wonders if maybe she was lonely for a family, too, if she was tired of being in charge of it all with no one to help out.

He likes to think so; it seems right. He missed having her, and she missed having him, and now that they're a family everything has its own satisfying sort of completion.

"It's just that you're such a fantastic cook. I can't help it," he teases, pleased by the way her eyes light up at the compliment.

Just wait until he can bring Therrin over; she's going to love this.

(Where...?)

Oh, _there_ she is! "I was just thinking about you!" Alistair says, beaming.

Therrin doesn't answer immediately, looking from him to Goldanna to each of the children in turn, unsmiling and repressively silent.

"Therrin?" This odd silence is completely rude, and Therrin's not usually a rude person, so it takes him by surprise and he jerks back forcefully on his disappointed embarrassment.

Goldanna doesn't seem to mind, and only smiles, maternal and welcoming. "You must be Alistair's girl. He talks about you all the time. Isn't it nice to meet you? Come on over, sweetheart, have some supper."

Goldanna smiles and turns for another plate, and when she isn't looking Alistair nudges Therrin in the arm, hard. "What's _wrong_ with you? You're being stuck-up."

"Alistair..." Why's she whispering? Confusion prods in sharp little jolts at the edges of his mind, uncomfortable. Therrin sits down beside him at the rough table, looking unhappy and worryingly tired.

"What's happened to you?" he asks, murmuring. "You should've just said if you were sick, or..."

"I'm not sick." And she straightens and leans in very close, so that he can feel the puff of her breath on his cheek. "Alistair, this isn't _real_."

He jerks back as though she'd stuck a brand to his skin. "What are you talking about?"

Goldanna returns with a plate for Therrin, smiling contentedly. "Hmm? Is there a problem, Alistair?" She tilts her head thoughtfully, and it seems like such a... such a Therrin-ish gesture that it makes Alistair squirm because something doesn't quite feel right. Right gesture, wrong face. Wrong…

"Of course not," Alistair says, more forcefully than he means to. "Everything's _fine_." And it is, it has to be, because he was—is—so happy, and he isn't about to give it up for…

For…

Goldanna smiles again, reassured, and turns to fetch Therrin a cup; while her back is turned Alistair whispers, "What do you _mean_ this isn't real?"

Therrin looks as weary and ashen as he's ever seen her, and it makes something cold settle in the pit of his stomach. "We're in the Fade. We're being held here by a demon. Alistair… please believe me." She glances over at Goldanna's back, worried—but Alistair's mind is already spinning circles, adamant, because she's wrong. This is real, this is his home, this is what he'd always wanted. She has to be wrong. "Think," Therrin insists in a low whisper. "You _met_ Goldanna. She only wanted your money."

"That was different," Alistair shoots back, stung—and worried, because he remembers that, a little. She'd not been happy to see him at all, had she? Or had _that_ been the dream?

This all seems so real, but even as he thinks about it the facts seem to go soft and melting at the edges, like candle wax dripping and flowing.

"Here you are," Goldanna says, setting a brimming cup in front of Therrin. "That'll perk you right up, my dear. I hope you weren't planning on leaving us soon." There's a faint, sharp edge to her smile then, something foreign and predatory Alistair gets the sense that he wasn't supposed to see, and in response an odd pain twists in his chest as though his heart's trying to tear itself free. "This should get you right as rain again," Goldanna goes on, resting a hip on the edge of the table and looking satisfied.

(But it's _not_ Goldanna, is it? Goldanna had scowled at him, had raised her voice and shouted that he had killed their mother, and he hadn't let on then how much the words had hurt because he'd known she wouldn't care.)

(Oh, but he _wants_ it to be real, down deep in his soul he wishes it were, but wishing isn't going to give him a thing in the world.)

Reality comes down cold, relentless and final and absolutely certain. "Don't drink that." Alistair pushes the cup away from Therrin, to something like a safe distance. If there is such a thing, in the Fade. "I think we need to get out of here."

Memories are seeping back like water under a doorway— of the Tower besieged, of abominations and blood mages and horrors at every turn—

Therrin rises when he does, resolute at his side, and Alistair looks at Goldanna again, really _looks_. She'd seemed brighter, here, softer and not so sharply angled; now all he can see is a lie. But all the disappointment and all the outrage in the world doesn't tell him what to do. "What now?"

And then Goldanna's voice is _not_ Goldanna's voice, and even though he'd fixed it in his mind that it wasn't her it's still a horrifying surprise to hear the evidence, the ponderous tones shifting, the snake-skittering of whispers at the corners of his ears, demon-speak sliding along his brain before she attacks.

In the end, they do what they always do: they fight, and survive.

He nearly can't do it. Goldanna—or the lying wretch of a thing _pretending_ to be Goldanna—yes, he can raise his blade to her. But the children are different, and even as they attack with fists and high, pitiful cries Alistair can't unsee them as his nieces and nephews, the lie nestled so closely in some place in his heart that the ripping ache of the loss throbs through him.

He lowers his blade and steps away once Goldanna falls; Therrin's whirlwind of a blizzard freezes the demon-children around them and erases their expressions beneath the coating of ice. They fall one by one and last is the littlest girl, who thaws for a second at the very end. She had clambered onto his knee and kissed his cheek; now she looks tortured, accusing, and before Therrin's magic fells her the child's expression sears its way into Alistair's soul.

_I'm sorry_, he thinks, and doesn't know why.

But there isn't time. "Listen," Therrin insists, urgent and holding onto his shirt. "I think you're about to disappear—"

Which is strange, because she's the one dissolving. "I think you've got that backwards," Alistair says, and only has time to think _don't leave me_ before she's gone.


	8. Litany

They're nearly to the top of the Tower—or at least that's what it feels like, Alistair's legs are burning with the effort of climbing so many stairs—when Therrin stops, uncertain. There's some… some purple sort of circle-thing, and a templar in it, kneeling, and Therrin freezes in horror. "What's wrong?" Alistair grips his sword, just in case. What he wouldn't give for two minutes just to be able to sit down and catch his breath, because every muscle in his body feels as though it's shaking with exhaustion. "Therrin?"

The templar in the cage looks up, unsteady and when he takes in the sight of them, utterly despairing. "Ther— Maker _no, _not_ again_." His voice breaks on the hopeless prayer, his armor scraping the stone as he backs away.

"Cullen." Therrin's expression falls and her staff drops out of her hand, clattering across the gore-spattered floor.

The templar doesn't seem to think she's real—or that she's a demon, and isn't _that_ familiar? (He should've known it wasn't Goldanna; the ease with which the lie had slid into his mind makes his skin crawl.)

There's a catch in Therrin's voice, all unexpected; when Alistair looks, the templar in the magic cage is nearly keening in despair as he gathers himself upright. Alistair suspects uncomfortably that there's a history here between them about two seconds before the templar confirms it in rough syllables of gritted-out misery.

"Cullen," Therrin says, uselessly and standing very still. Right, Alistair thinks, I'll just stand here and do nothing because anything else is too awkward to think about—

But the templar's agony turns to fury with alarming speed. As the words come tumbling out Alistair's grateful for the cage, because he isn't sure _kill all the mages_ doesn't mean that the templar doesn't count Therrin in that number.

Of course, Therrin refuses.

It doesn't exactly go over well. The templar shouts and Therrin shouts back and when they run out of words they square off, silent and angry and they're all wasting _time_. The templar may be as insane as all the others but he's caged, at least, and so not a threat, but Therrin seems reluctant to leave.

And then _Wynne_ gets started arguing and Alistair just about throws his hands in the air—_right, should we stop and have a picnic? Make some tea and little sandwiches, since we don't have anything better to do—_

"We need to go," Alistair insists with what gentleness he has, nudging Therrin in the arm when she doesn't respond. "Things to do, mages to save. Come on."

-oOo-

If he never sees a demon again, Alistair thinks, it'll be far too soon.

After floor after floor of horrors he should've expected that the worst was still to come, but something in his brain had grown attached to the idea of almost being finished, of being nearly there, of having killed so many demons and abominations and maleficarum that surely they were almost at the end.

They'd find the mages, they'd save the day, they'd win this thing, and then they could go on with trying to stop the Blight.

It doesn't happen that way.

Uldred isn't human, not anymore, though Alistair isn't exactly sure what he is. Either way, Alistair could've told him the entire recruitment speech was a waste of time because Therrin wasn't interested,but Uldred seems the type half in love with his own voice and doesn't stop talking.

(There's a moment where Alistair's Chantry upbringing forces its way through his heart like a spear; _with the power of a demon behind you you could be unstoppable_, Uldred tells Therrin, and for a moment it's all too easy to imagine. The Tevinter magisters were monsters out of legend, safely buried in the past. The idea of Therrin, _his_ Therrin, demon-driven and unstoppable—)

There's no time to dwell on it, though: the circle-room erupts with magic, enough to overload his templar-trained senses, to make colors flash behind his eyes and send his head reeling. His ears ring with the noise, sounds he feels as much as hears: screams of the mages that seem to tear a path through his chest, Leliana's desperate cries as she dodges the claws of abominations, Wynne's voice high and thin shouting—

They come perilously close to losing that battle. Alistair loses sight of Leliana entirely and once actually trips over Wynne's fallen body. (_Maker, please don't let her be dead, there are too many dead already._) In the fire and chaos he falls, twice, choking on his own blood as his vision goes dark, twice snatched back from the edge by a desperate flood of magic, woozy as he jerks himself back to his feet to fight, thoughts sliding away like half-frozen honey. _Do you remember when you couldn't fight?_ he thinks dizzily at Therrin as he jerks his sword out of the flesh of a falling abomination. _Because _I_ remember when you couldn't fight—_

With almost no warning at all it's over: the Uldred-demon-thing falls with a thunderous crash, and the chamber goes silent.

It takes him a moment. He feels bloodless and shaky and maybe this is some sort of nightmare, maybe they're back in the Fade.

But no, the chamber is silent because everything is dead.

_Dead_, he thinks, his heart plummeting. That wasn't the way this was supposed to go, they were supposed to _save_ the mages, they have treaties—

There's a cough, weak and liquid-sounding, and Therrin crawls out from beside the wreck of Uldred's body, blood-soaked and shaking. Alistair follows her to the side of a bearded man, thin chest heaving with a reedy, sucking sound. Therrin calls for Wynne (and Wynne is dead, Alistair thinks, but no—she rouses at the sound of her name, looking ghostly-pale and unsteady) and the two of them kneel at the other mage's side. They hold his hands as he dies, none of Wynne's magic strong enough to save him; he gasps for air until he stops, and the chamber falls silent again.

The caged templar from before storms up and Alistair braces himself for another fight. It doesn't come. The other templar takes a moment to survey the destruction and then leads the way back to the Knight-Commander, grim and silent and forcing the doors open, shoving aside the crumpled bodies to make way. There are terrible heaps of bodies by the great barred door, mages and templars alike, and Alistair's stomach heaves at the sight of them all barred in together and abandoned to die. The templars on the other side _must_ have heard them…

It takes a minute to convince the Knight-Commander to open the doors; when he does, he looks anything but pleased. "Where's Irving?"

"Dead." Alistair has to turn and look to be sure it's her; Therrin's never sounded like _that_ before. "Everyone's dead."

The idea chews at Alistair, even as the door is unbarred: they'd come to recruit mages to help with the Blight, and there aren't any mages left.

"Warden," the Knight-Commander says, and Alistair's head jerks up but the Knight-Commander's looking at Therrin. "A word in private."

Therrin nods and follows the old templar into his office, and Alistair bites back a surge of mistrust when the door closes. They should have left; she'd been afraid they wouldn't let her leave the Tower again and now she might be right—

Sweat trickles down the back of Alistair's neck as he waits, worrying. When Oghren catches his eye Alistair nods, very slightly, and Oghren leans on his axe as though ready to make a move at any second. It can't be all that long but it feels like hours, and when they reemerge the Knight Commander announces (to Alistair's uncomfortable surprise) that the templars will go to Denerim to aid in the effort against the Blight.

It's a cheerless victory.

Wynne insists on going with the Grey Wardens, and as she gathers her things Alistair paces the length of the halls, slowly, horrified at the scale of the destruction. There'd been so many people living here just days ago, a whole Tower full of mages and magic and life. Now it seems like a husk. It could so easily have been him, here—piled with the others on the wrong side of a barred door, possessed or driven mad or slaughtered for a blood mage's sacrifice. His skin crawls at the thought; uneasy, he heads back for the company of others.

He comes in at the tail end of a conversation, bitter enough to make him stop, disbelieving—_no, she didn't do all she could_, Wynne says, accusing and tired and arguing with Leliana. _She could have used the Litany._

Therrin is right there, Alistair thinks, horrified, and he'd always heard that you see red when you get angry but that doesn't even _begin_ to cover it. A ferocious and pitiless rage roars in his head, fueled by horror and worry and the aftermath of being ripped into the Fade unwilling. "Right, because nothing says 'time for a bit of light reading' like a demon attack," he bites out, the words leaping out of his mouth before he can think. "Not to mention _you_ deciding to fall over and have a nap in the middle of things instead of keeping it together long enough to fight. We just saved your life, how can you—?"

"Alistair." Therrin curls her hand around his arm, shaking her head. "Don't."

"She shouldn't," Alistair protests after he casts about and pulls her into a nearby alcove, and it's not private but it's the best they're going to get. She holds onto him tightly instead of answering, and he kisses the top of her head even though it's matted with blood. (The whole Tower had been drowned in a tide of blood; Alistair thinks for a wild second that he might personally know every mage left alive in Ferelden.) "Tell me what to do and I'll do it," he murmurs, despairing and holding on to her when she makes no move to let go. He'd fix this if he could but he doesn't have the faintest idea of where to begin. "Ask me for anything and I'll get it. The sun. The ocean. Cake." His brain catches up with his mouth, spinning. "Please say cake."

He thinks she laughs but the sound is so muffled against his body it might be a sob. "Get me out of here?"

"Right," Alistair says immediately, and then, stronger: "Right. I can do that."

And he does, holding her hand as they make their way down what seem like thousands of stairs, fervently hoping that neither of them have to come back to this wretched place for as long as they live.


	9. Normal

His socks are more hole than sock anymore, Alistair laments privately, holding one of the miserable things up from washing and looking at it as the evening light pours through the weave. And the holes. The massive, gaping holes. He darts glances across the campfire at Wynne, sitting ramrod-straight on a turned-over bucket and mending the hem of her spare robe, ignoring the bustle of the camp and everything else, and Alistair thinks: _hmm_.

He doesn't really know what to make of Wynne and she hasn't been much for conversation. More than anything else she makes him feel a decade younger, just about the way he'd felt when he was first sent to the Chantry, all clumsy and full of spite and wrong answers. But every now and then he thinks she looks wistful, and he knows she looks back at the direction of the Circle Tower pretty often. She'd taught students there, hadn't she? Maybe she was sad over leaving them behind. Maybe she'd been a sweet, indulgent sort of teacher, the kind students adored.

Maybe she'll darn his socks.

She's already sewing, he tells himself, working up to the idea. And she does look a little bit grandmotherly, doesn't she? The direct approach is best, he decides, gathering up the woeful-looking socks and the evil, wretched little needle that had jabbed him a few-dozen times already (he had been better at sewing, once, he thinks, but back then he hadn't been nearly so hard on his own gear, which is entirely understandable because back then there hadn't been darkspawn).

"I can't help but notice how amazing you are at sewing," he says hopefully as he takes a seat beside her bucket, which is a bad idea. The bucket gives her extra height and for a second when she gives him a wary look he feels just like a small boy about to receive a scolding. But it's true enough. Her stitches are small and very neat, and the holes in the fabric look as much like they've been frightened into submission as patched up.

"Thank you," she says primly, turning back to her mending.

"Thing is," Alistair goes on. "I think you're much better at it than I am."

One white eyebrow arches. "Oh?"

"Definitely." Two more quick, tiny stitches sink into the fabric as he watches. How does she get them that small? He can't feel any spells going on but oh… magic-sewing would be neat, wouldn't it? Maybe Therrin—no. Later. He shakes himself back to the task at hand. "And what with all the, you know, demons, abominations, small fluffy animals gone mad and chewing at my feet—"

"Those socks aren't salvageable," Wynne says levelly, cutting across his fragile hope.

Alistair looks at the mangled socks in his hands.

Wynne tugs in another stitch, glancing sidelong his direction. "Surely you have more socks than just those?"

"Yes," Alistair answers, faintly stung. Does she really think him so uncouth that he'd wander around the wilderness without at least two extra pairs of socks and smalls? Templar training had been good for _something_, after all. "It's just that these were my very favorite pair," he jokes weakly, sounding as puppy-dog pathetic as he can muster.

Wynne looks over at him, surprised, but before he can apologize for the truly horrible timing and his really abysmal sense of humor, she says, "I see," and holds out her hand. "Let's have them. I'll see what I can do."

Alistair perks. "Really?"

She holds up one of the socks, forehead crinkling as though she regrets the offer already. "I suppose."

"Because I've also got a favorite shirt, and trousers—"

On the other hand, he thinks, grumbling his way back to his tent with his unsalvageable socks in his hands, Wynne was probably the kind of teacher who gave extra busywork to little boys who looked out the window and daydreamed. The kind of teacher who laughed when you got things wrong.

But: _magical sewing_, he wonders, snagging onto the tail of the idea as it whips by. Surely repairing people is harder than repairing things, right? And magic means the only mage who he can trust, who is Therrin, who is…

Not in camp.

Alistair passes over Sten and Oghren and Zevran (together by the fire, and more daunting as a unit than apart). "Dog," he says at last, falling to a knee and holding out a generous chunk of rabbit in offering. "Which way did Therrin go, did you see?"

Dog bolts it down with a quick series of smacking sounds, stump of a tail wagging, and then leaps through the thin brush so quickly Alistair can hardly keep up. The mabari seems to hop as much sideways as forward, like a great rabbit just bounding for the sake of bounding as the trees grow thicker and the limbs hang down low in Alistair's way. "Yes, you're—_ow_—fast, uh, alright, can you not do—"

Dog disappears with a rustle into the underbrush.

"—that."

But in the silence that comes after he can hear voices, women's voices, low and not too far away. He disentangles from the brush and tree-limbs, taking exaggerated steps to stay free of the brambles until he comes to a deer trail, and then hustling along the path until it gives way to a little clearing. Dog pants at the clearing-edge, tail wagging in greeting. You are slow!

"I'm not a _mabari_. I can't dig—" Alistair protests, and stops. In the rising moonlight are Therrin and Morrigan, alone, and the thought makes his skin crawl though he doesn't quite know why. From here he can feel the snowfall-brush of magic, just at the farthest edge of his senses, a frustrated forcing undercurrent to the sensation that makes him wonder what they're up to.

He doesn't get a chance to eavesdrop, though, because Morrigan turns his way and crosses her arms, utterly unimpressed. "Adding _spy_ to the list of your failed occupations, templar?"

"No," he retorts, and then desperately wishes he had something brilliant to say, something perfect and cutting and witty that'd wipe the smug look right off her face. Three or four weak alternatives flit through his mind and he discards them out of hand, grumbling inwardly as the seconds tick by and the moment passes.

But it doesn't matter, in the end. Whatever they'd been up to, they leave off at his arrival, the grass of the clearing leaving burrs on Therrin's robe as she heads for his side. "Those aren't socks, are they?"

"They used to be." Alistair dangles them in one hand, wondering why he'd brought them at all, because surely Morrigan will see how pathetic they are and sneer at that, too. She doesn't, though. She swishes her way out of the clearing and disappears into the night, leaving them alone with Dog.

Therrin thinks. "Alistair. Is there a particular reason you're carrying around socks?"

He tucks them under one arm, suddenly embarrassed. "Never mind that," he says instead. "What were you two up to, hmm?" Therrin's mouth opens for a second and closes without a word having come out. Oh no, he thinks, whatever she's talked you into, don't do it.

Therrin crosses her arms as they head for the deer-path, the moonlight silvering the edges of the leaves. "If you must know," she says, reluctantly, "Morrigan was trying to teach me to shapeshift."

Alistair stops, surprised. "What, really?"

Therrin ducks her head, and he thinks she might be flushing but he can't be sure. "It's not _working_," she admits. "But yes."

As far as magic spells go, shapeshifting sounds really very interesting, at least from the next-to-nothing he knows about it. But: "Why?" he asks, unable to contain himself.

"Because I don't know enough," she says, voice rough and low. "And… back at the Tower—" and another of those glances over her shoulder, as though she can feel it like a magnet even this far away, "it made it pretty clear. I've got to be stronger. Smarter. Ready."

That wasn't your _fault_, he wants to tell her, heart sinking, but before he can say anything she looks at him directly. "Do you disapprove?"

Alistair hesitates. "No?"

"This isn't Chantry-sanctioned magic," Therrin stresses, fidgeting with the sleeve of her robe, defiant and uncertain all at once. "If me learning it is a problem, then—"

"It's not. Of course it's not. Whatever you have to know," he says immediately, and then amends, "Well. Except. You know, none of the blood mages we've run into have done all that well for themselves, so… if you could avoid the whole maleficar thing…"

"I couldn't be a blood mage," Therrin tells him, relieved. "I just… I didn't want you to think I was a bad mage for learning something… new."

"No. Of course not. I was thinking about taking up puppetry, myself, but. You know. Worried about what you'd think," he finished, trying to nudge her into smiling again. "'Oh no, there's Alistair again with his puppets. One day they'll kill us all', that sort of thing."

Therrin looks at him skeptically. "I was being serious."

"So was I. You can't trust puppets. I suppose _Grey Warden_ puppets—"

She sighs, ever-so-quietly.

"No, I know," he manages, sobering. "But it's stupid to worry over it. Not… not _you're_ stupid," he clarifies, feeling a bit of an idiot. "But you being a bad mage is the most impossible thing I've ever heard of. You're a good mage. You're one of the best people I know, really; mage has nothing to do with it."

She stares at him, dumbstruck. "You really mean that."

Alistair coughs. "Ah… yes?" And then the weird awkward bit passes because Therrin launches herself at him, arms around his neck and her mouth fervent and warm against his own, a melting relief seeming to pour out from his bones. Everything had seemed frozen since the disaster at the Tower; she'd been locked away in her own strange coldness and he hadn't known how to approach, not really, and—oh, when'd they get to leaning against the tree? They're not too far out from camp; he can see the fire from here, and people walking, but Therrin's hands are roaming over his body and not stopping and he doesn't want to stop either but— "Tent," he manages, muttering it against her jaw. They can't do this sort of thing out in the open, not with these traveling companions, and he knows from experience by now that few things will kill a mood faster than Oghren shouting out suggestions and Zevran laughing and offering up corrections.

The inside of the tent is dim and only vaguely private but it doesn't matter. They make love open-eyed and warm and when it's over she sighs against his skin, a shuddering sound like coming to an end of a long cry. He keeps an arm around her when she sprawls against his chest, tracing patterns on his collarbone with a fingertip until she props on an elbow, frowning. "Wow." She picks up one of the pitiful-looking socks, eyeing it dubiously.

"It takes a lot of effort to destroy socks like that," he informs her, so relaxed he can hardly move. "But I was going to ask you if there's any sort of repairing magic. You know. For socks."

She gives him a disbelieving look. "I can set it on fire…?"

Alistair laughs, unable to stop himself. "Later," he promises, pulling her back down against his side. "We'll have a bonfire and dance around it in celebration of sending socks back to their wooly Maker. There'll be the ritual Anointing of the Darning Needles, and prayers to the Holey Fiber of Sockdom—" he rambles on, brimming with relief as she laughs and listens. A small dark worry had gnawed at his heart that things would never be the same, that _she_ would never be the same and everything he'd loved about her had been wiped out in the wreck of mages and templars. But now it feels normal, blessedly, perfectly normal, and so with the two of them in the tent he makes up the most ridiculous jokes he can think of far into the night, just to make the moment last as long as he can possibly hold onto it.


	10. Mages

Traveling with Wynne along is different, Alistair discovers. Not in a bad way, not exactly. Oghren complains that the old mage is a walking bucket of cold water and only grumbles, at first, and Therrin avoids Wynne as though she's covered all over in festering sores. Most of the time at camp Wynne sits alone, a little apart from everyone else. Like Morrigan, in a way.

But she likes Alistair, though he can't figure out why. That little outburst of his at the Circle Tower couldn't have been endearing, and all else aside, he's a templar, sort of, and if that wasn't cause enough for a cold shoulder he doesn't know what would be. It doesn't stop her from smiling when she sees him, a pleasant, fleeting look. Grandmotherly, despite her lack of fixing his socks. It's more guilt than anything that makes him offer to carry her satchel, and it weighs nearly nothing but she looks pleased as if he'd taken a boulder off her hands.

He's just about to give up on being outside in the blowing dust of the afternoon when the situation boils over and Therrin storms back from the creek with her wet laundry slung over one arm, fuming all the way. "I'm going to spit that woman on a stick," she swears before disappearing into their tent.

When Alistair looks in, she's trying to hang a wet robe on a makeshift line, the rest of the damp clothes slopped to the top of the bedroll. "Who's getting spitted?" he asks, steadying the tent pole so the whole thing doesn't collapse, trying to think whose turn it was to go wash. "Wynne?"

_"Yes."_

Alistair looks back over his shoulder in the direction of the creek. "What'd she do? Kick Dog?"

"No," Therrin says, reaching for a damp shirt to hang. "Not that."

"Snatch food from the mouths of hungry orphans? Roll a barrel of puppies down a hill and laugh?"

"_No_," Therrin says, looking at him strangely. But it works: he can practically feel the heat of her anger die back. "She told me to leave you."

Alistair's stomach drops, a quick hard plunge. "What? Why?"

"Because she likes you." The shirt hangs over the line like a disembodied skin, and Therrin frowns, straightening a wrinkle in one sleeve. "She thinks I'm going to hurt you."

"And leaving me wouldn't hurt?" A sword through the guts would be cleaner. Possibly less painful.

"That's what _I_ said. But no, better to do it sooner than later, she said. Like it was the most obvious thing in the world and if I had any sense I'd get to it before sunset."

Alistair tries to work it through and fails because it's completely absurd, the pieces don't fit. Here he'd thought Wynne was sensible, sort of. And liked him, which seems completely at odds with _this_. "So what'd you say? Not 'fine, I'll just go see about that now' I hope."

Therrin snorts. "No. I just said it wasn't any of her business and to keep her nose out of it."

He can just see it now… "I bet that went over well."

"I might have suggested an alternate place for her to keep her staff," Therrin admits, voice dropping off to a mumble.

"Wh—oh. Oh, you _didn't_."

"It's none of her business," Therrin insists. "And I'm not going to hurt you!"

_Right. The next poor fool that comes by, on the other hand…_ "Well," Alistair says, thinking it over. "Don't be too hasty, now; you _did_ step on my foot this morning. Wynne might have a point."

Therrin tosses a wet cloth at him, still annoyed, but he thinks she tries to stifle a smile when she goes back to hanging up the clothes.

-oOo-

Alistair thinks that night that he ought to have a word with Wynne about it in the morning. Maybe she meant well, though… leaving him? It's hard to be charitable about advice like _that_.

He wonders, in the vague, fleeting seconds before sleep, why Wynne hadn't cautioned about the hurt going the other way around. But all thought of conversation dies when the shrieks attack in the night, too fast and too out of nowhere for Oghren to raise the alarm. When Alistair tries to sleep again, the darkspawn dreams wrench him awake, and the next days are punctuated only by ceaseless rain, recurring nightmares, and the long trudge south until the fields give way to forest, wild and familiar.

When it occurs to him, he wanders to the front of their little procession to find Therrin at the lead, jabbing her staff into the soggy ground as though she's got a personal grievance with the rain. "I think we've missed a turn," he says, keeping his toes well out of staff-jabbing range. "The elves are east of here, aren't they?" Not in the Korcari Wilds, anyway, he's sure of that.

"We're not heading for the Dalish yet," Therrin answers. "I've got to make a detour."

"A detour," Alistair echoes. "Right. So… south." He wracks his brains for a reason they'd be heading south and comes up with nothing. No lovestruck dwarf needed a letter carried to the Wilds, did they? "What's south?"

"Flemeth," Therrin says, and there it is again creeping in like a draft, that nagging whisper of that new, frozen stillness that'd lingered ever since the nightmare at the Circle Tower. Not with _him_, thank the Maker, and not half so bad as before, but there nonetheless, making the hairs at the back of his neck rise ever so often.

"Flemeth," Alistair says, leading, but Therrin doesn't take the bait. Or doesn't realize it _was_ bait. "Are we going over for stew? She did make good stew, even I've got to give her that." Bizarre and probably crazy and definitely evil, but that didn't make the stew bad.

"No," Therrin says, not looking up. "I'm going to kill her."

-oOo-

It takes no sleuthing at all to work out that this was Morrigan's idea, inexplicable as the thought is at first. When pressed, Therrin only says the details aren't hers to give, and the idea eats at Alistair's insides more with every mile they walk, all through the evening and late into the night. "Seems a bit ungrateful, doesn't it?" he asks during watch, low enough not to wake Sten, sleeping nearby and unbothered by the rain. "Flemeth did save our lives, after all. And saved the treaties, too." Which does nothing at all to change the whole apostate thing, and maleficar, and probably a hundred other types of evil. Still…

Therrin watches the fire, disturbed. "I know," she says, finally.

"What are you going to do, knock on the door and say 'oh, hi, was just in the area, thought I might drop by and kill you because of something Morrigan said, sorry'?" It sounds ridiculous coming off his tongue.

"If I didn't think there was a good reason to do it, we'd be heading for the Dalish already." But her expression says otherwise and Alistair keeps quiet, wondering if Therrin's reluctance will have them headed back out of the Wilds by morning. Maybe she'd be more reasonable after a decent night's sleep, if they could get one.

Not likely, he thinks sourly, and settles in to get what rest he can before the nightmares come.

Instead, sleeps like a rock and wakes up late in an empty tent, blinking at the dim haze of sunlight through the canvas. _We should have got going an hour ago_, he thinks blearily, reaching over for Therrin and finding only the empty bedroll.

When he tears open the tent flap Therrin is nowhere in sight. There's only Morrigan, pacing on one side of the dead fire pit, Wynne sitting on the other, but Oghren's gone, and Leliana and Dog, and Alistair's head rings in alarm. "She left," he says, disbelieving. _Without me._

"With the idiotic notion of sparing your conscience," Morrigan bites out, harried and more feral than ever. "We weren't to wake you."

_And you __**listened?**_ Alistair dives for his sword, fingers numb and clumsy and much too slow. "Which way did they go?"

"Southwest, a little more than an hour ago," Wynne says. "Is there cause for alarm?"

"It's _Flemeth_," he snaps before he can think, but no comprehension lights up Wynne's face. _No one told you_. "I hope not," he manages in a hurry. _But it's Flemeth. So yes._

Armed and armored, he takes off through the trees in a rush, following what he hopes is the right trail. He was never all that good at navigating like this but Oghren isn't too hard to follow. Unless there's Fereldan's biggest, heaviest deer out here, a deer wearing Oghren-sized boots…

But no, after what feels like ages, he catches the sense of magic, faint but familiar, and he breaks into a run. The closer he gets the surer he feels the spells; the longer he runs the more frantic and disorganized the magic grows, whipping across his senses so he winces, but doesn't break speed. By the time he stumbles into the clearing around Flemeth's hut the desperate flood of magic has faded almost to nothing. The enormous bulk of a dying dragon crowds the only hill, and as Alistair blinks in the sudden sunlight Leliana's arrow and Therrin's forked strike of lightning hit the beast in unison. The dragon screams and sounds nearly like a woman, and gooseflesh rises along Alistair's arms as he puts it together.

Flemeth dies with a groan that shakes the ground, and across the clearing he can see Therrin drop to the ground like a stone. _No_, he thinks, and takes off running again. The mud sucks at his feet like Flemeth had leached into the ground already, slowing him out of spite. He skids to a stop and hauls Therrin out of the muck, dazed but alive, and she blinks at him like she suspects she's dreaming. "Alistair?"

"You thought you'd just run off to slay dragons without me, did you?" he says, lightheaded with fear and its aftermath. The ground beneath him squelches, bubbling up red around his boots. "I'm hurt."

"When you killed the last one, you made it look like so much fun." When she shivers and holds her side her fingers go red, and he can feel the lack of magic like an emptiness in his own head. He didn't think to bring bandages or poultices, or… Alistair freezes, wondering if he ought to race back to Wynne, if he could find his way back with panic clawing through his head. Therrin reaches for her staff, fingers clumsy. "It's not as bad as it looks."

"Riiiiight. You could kill another one right now, I bet. Rip the arms off a Qunari." Or stop bleeding. Stopping bleeding would be good. He catches sight of Leliana jogging over as they stand, too slowly.

"Maybe… not _now_," Therrin admits.

Her lips are bloodless and Alistair can't feel her magic returning, not a flicker, and that's enough sign for him that this is a bigger problem than he's equipped to handle. A quick casting-about leads only to… "You're not going to like this," he says, steering them both toward Flemeth's hut. _Don't let it be trapped. Don't let it be haunted_. "But you should really stay put."

Leliana taps his shoulder while he's wrestling with the door, which would've been easier if he'd put his sword away, or didn't have an armful of bleeding mage, or didn't have a warhound the size of a cow whining underfoot. "I will get Wynne," Leliana says, stepping back out of accidental sword-range, her hair singed and armor blackened. "Should I bring all the others, as well?"

_How should I know? I'm not in charge_— "Yes," Alistair says instead. "Do that. Thanks." As Leliana heads off into the Wilds, Alistair waits in painful silence just outside Flemeth's hut for the second time in his life, willing everything to be all right, wishing he knew what to do now.

-oOo-

His next days are framed by the quartet of mages, living and dead: by the air filled with clouds of biting insects and the stench of the Wilds taking back Flemeth's body, by Therrin in the sickbed and Wynne as close and calm as though they'd never quarreled at all, and by Morrigan, who hovers close by like a blackbird that doesn't quite know where to land.


	11. Apex

Flea heaven or not, the Brecilian Forest is a definite improvement over the Wilds. With the werewolf curse broken and both sides at a kind of peace, camp feels more secure than it has in ages… or maybe it's just having a little breathing room, Alistair thinks, looking up at the blowing canopy of the trees. No demons or shrieks here, not any more, just the rushing of the river close by and the mundane night-sounds of camp. He could almost just doze off sitting up…

"You can go get some sleep, if you need to," Therrin says beside him, and his eyes snap open. Watch isn't a good time for a nap. Watch is about the _worst_ time for a nap.

"Couldn't possibly," Alistair argues, and stifles a yawn. "I was just resting my eyes. Have to keep them ready."

"Or you could sleep, and rest everything else, too." Her mouth twitches, and for a second she looks less exhausted. "I don't mind."

"I do." He sweeps a glance around the camp, only begrudging the sleepers in their tents a little. Standing watch no matter what was probably a fair decision and likely good for morale and all, but he can't help think maybe those among them _not_ afflicted with darkspawn dreams should be up so that he and Therrin could snatch what little sleep they could.

Or maybe that's the lack of sleep talking.

"Here, then," she says, and inches sideways, pulling him over until his head pillows on her leg, and if it was hard to keep his eyes open before, it's a hundred times harder now.

"Sneaky," he protests, not moving an inch even though the position isn't entirely comfortable. "I know what you're up to. It isn't going to work."

Her fingers toy with his hair, which is more relaxing than it has any right to be. "I have good intentions," she tells him, and presses a kiss to his ear. "That's got to count for something."

"Not at all," he mumbles, and though he only means to rest his eyes for a minute fatigue swallows him whole, and he only wakes a little when Therrin shakes him awake to stumble back toward the tent.

But the next morning the tables are turned, sort of. He wakes up first, blinking dully at the dim haze of sunlight through the tent, and once he realizes Therrin's still peacefully asleep he disentangles himself as carefully as he can, rushing out to keep the others from making a racket. Sleep without nightmares may as well be a gift from the Maker; if Alistair has to tie Oghren's hands to his _beard_ to keep him from clattering around and waking Therrin then he'll do it.

By the time dawn creeps into mid-morning and mid-morning into noon, it seems apparent that today's not going to hold any sort of productive travel. Freed from waiting, everyone disperses to their own individual occupations, leaving Alistair empty-handed and without a single idea what to do. Wash, certainly, but most of his dirty things are inside the tent and he'd wake Therrin if he tried to fetch them.

But if someone _else_ did it…

Much as he hates asking Zevran for anything, he has to admit that the elf is much quieter. Alistair watches from a distance, near Wynne, who's occupied with the open book across her knees. "It's a nice day for a rest," she tells him. "I'm glad you thought of it."

"… oh. Yes. I thought we could all do with a rest," he says, and doesn't let on that it was more an accident than anything. He squints at the tent as though he could see through the weave. It shouldn't have taken Zevran so long to find Alistair's clothes…

"I believe I was wrong about you. And your relationship with Therrin," Wynne says, calm as though she'd read it off the page—and for a moment, Alistair thinks she must have.

But no, she looks at him, expectant, and all at once he feels as though he'd just tiptoed by accident onto a trap-ridden battlefield. "You do?"

"Yes. I may have been too hasty before. You do seem… happy, together." The breeze ruffles the pages of her book, and she puts a hand on the page to keep her place. "I thought I should apologize for saying otherwise, before."

What is _keeping_ Zevran? Alistair watches the opening of the tent with growing alarm. "Thanks, I… think. But you should probably tell that to Therrin, really."

Wynne smiles. "Oh, I doubt she'd listen to me. Not now."

Alistair only watches the tent. "Huh." But he remembers himself, and tries to shake off the distraction. "What makes you think—"

An eruption of startled magic too disorganized for a spell bursts from the tent, along with a shriek of "Zevran!" before the tent-pole falls over and the tent itself billows down into a heap of cloth. The accused wriggles free first, decidedly unhappy and more disheveled than Alistair can remember seeing him, and Therrin follows some seconds later, batting away swaths of canvas with one hand and laughing helplessly into the other.

"What happened?"

Zevran's glare at Alistair promises a slow, painful death. "I was _stuck_."

"_You?_"

"You didn't mention the traps when you asked for your favor," Zevran informs him.

"… traps? Oh," Alistair says, remembering. "Oh, the _glyphs_. Sorry." He'd sidestepped one and disabled the other without a thought when he'd first got up, but he hadn't thought about the other, or thought Zevran might get tangled up in it… "I can't imagine you getting stuck anywhere."

"I _am_ sorry," Therrin tells Zevran when she approaches, apparently not for the first time. "You startled me, that's all. I didn't mean to hit you."

"While he was paralyzed?" Alistair asks, bizarrely fascinated. He shouldn't laugh. Zevran did him a favor, and it's beyond rude to laugh at the idea of the Antivan struck still as a tree-stump being smacked by a groggy mage…

"I'm sorry!"

Zevran sighs at Alistair. "You are _welcome_. For any further favors: the answer is no." And with that he stalks away, disappearing into his own tent where, presumably there aren't any traps, nor anyone to laugh at him.

But for now, Therrin is pink-cheeked and biting her lip with mirth and, to his relief, rested. So it _wasn't_ all for nothing. "What was he doing in our tent?" she asks.

Alistair opens his mouth and shuts it, because Wynne is right there watching them both with candid interest. Too much candid interest. "It's a long story," Alistair says, and when he fetches his bundle of clothing from the collapsed tent himself, Therrin trails along behind, taking up her new staff and following him down the long slope of the hill to the river.

"You look better," Alistair notes, looking up from scrubbing clothes to find Therrin watching him, chin in her hands, staff across her lap.

"I feel better. You really shouldn't have let me sleep so long, though," Therrin observes, detached as though she'd found some flaw in an academic treatise. "I'm not sure we can afford the time."

"It's called turnabout and I'm told it's fair play. You left _me_ sleeping in the other morning, remember."

She considers it. "I did."

"Besides," he says, wringing out the shirts in his hands. "We _did_ it. And it's about time we had a rest after all that."

Therrin frowns in dawning alarm. "Alistair," she begins warily, "if the next words out of your mouth are 'while you were sleeping this morning I ran off and killed the Archdemon—'"

"No, sadly. Not that I wouldn't have, it's just. Lack of opportunity."

"And by 'we did it' you mean… ?"

Alistair wades out to hang the shirts on a nearby branch, grabbing up his socks in one hand and heading back for the water. "The treaties. We've got aid from everyone who'd promised it in the treaties. The Dalish were the last, remember."

She blinks. "They were, weren't they?"

"I thought _you_ were supposed to be the organized one."

"I know. I guess I've been dwelling on what comes next," she admits.

Alistair winces inwardly, waiting for her to bring up the prince thing, but as he rinses and wrings his socks she only rolls her new staff back and forth beneath her palms, absorbed in her own thoughts.

"If you don't stop playing with that thing, you're going to go blind," he says.

"A new staff takes some getting used to." Therrin's glance up is wry. "And I thought that was just lampposts."

Alistair stops scrubbing. "You got that." She snickers quietly and he grins like a loon, dazed and elated all at once. "You got the joke! Do you know what this _means?_" He sloshes up out of the water to stand ankle-deep, dripping socks hanging from his fist as he swings his arm wide in a flourish at Therrin and announces to the heavens, "It means I, Alistair of the Grey Wardens, I have perverted this girl!" A flock of birds startles from the dead tree above, tearing off in a flurry of wingbeats.

"Say it louder, Alistair, I don't think they heard you in _Orlais_," Therrin complains, cheeks flaming, but Alistair's too flushed with success to get a little something like denial dampen his spirits.

"You don't understand. This is the proudest moment of my life. I might cry." Her sides shake when she laughs, silently. "Don't worry. When all this is over and we're recruiting? I won't let on to any of the new Wardens what a degenerate you are."

"Oh, _thank_ you."

"They can find out for themselves." But the wind picks up just then and the tree-branches shake and pitch his clean shirts to the mud of the riverbank, and Alistair grumbles to himself as he goes to retrieve them and Therrin comes to help. "I didn't want you doing laundry. It was supposed to be a day of rest. Relaxation. Fun." If they could _find_ fun out here. At the moment, it seems unlikely.

Therrin doesn't give the shirt back, only crouches down in the river shallows beside him, a smile on her lips. "I think I'd have more fun with you washing clothes right here than I'd have anywhere else. Or doing anything else, with anyone else."

His chest seems tight all of a sudden, which is completely silly. "That's a lot of _any_s," he protests. "Here I thought _I'd_ be the romantic, you know? Be crafty and charming and arrange for you to get some sleep and a perfect, quiet day without any doom at all. But noooo. You've got to try and one-up me. You're breaking my heart, you know, I had plans." Which is, to say the least, an exaggeration. But he _could_ have had plans.

"I do appreciate it," Therrin admits, swishing the shirt in the river."But you don't have to plan anything. It's enough just to be here. With you."

_Well then maybe this should be permanent_, he thinks, and: _how does _she_ just babble this stuff out and I have to trip over my own tongue to say it? It's hardly fair_. But a brief mental image of what it could be like after the Blight more than makes up for the momentary indignation, and for a second he almost pours his heart out entirely. For something that'd got its start in the most dire circumstances of his life, he can't imagine anything he wants more to keep, and the impulse to say so almost overrides all sense and caution.

Almost. But there's too much to do first, and besides, if he tried to spit it out now he'd only make a fool of himself. "You're such a girl," he complains instead, teasing.

Therrin splashes water at him and Alistair splashes back and it devolves quickly from there, but without any planning at all the day passes in peace, completely doom-less.

_It _is_ almost over_, Alistair thinks to himself in his tent that night, drowsily contemplating the sleeping mage beside him. And maybe now that the treaties have been seen to the end _will_ be upon them before they know it, maybe it's time to start considering the future more seriously—

Soon, he promises, and drifts off entirely.


	12. Prison

Arl Eamon greets the news of the promised allies with relief, and it's decided: tomorrow they'll head for Denerim, and Arl Eamon will call the Landsmeet.

The decision seems to lodge like a spike in Alistair's body, even though he'd known it was coming for ages. Something about the immediacy of _tomorrow_ does nothing for his nerves. He eats and hardly tastes his food. He washes in a numb kind of haze and goes early to bed and falls into a fitful shallow sleep at once. When he wakes in the night he's bleary, disoriented by his surroundings and uncomfortably alone. He hasn't slept alone in ages, it feels like. Maybe the castle staff had put Therrin up in another room. She ought to be here by now, otherwise…

Well, no saying he can't fix that himself. What the Arl doesn't know isn't going to kill him.

Alistair rolls out of bed and ventures out into the dark hallway as sneakily as he can, tiptoeing through the passageway with the kind of quiet a shadow would envy. In these corridors he could do this with his eyes closed. He could do it in his _sleep_.

But around the corner, someone is being much less stealthy. Footsteps, soft but constant, with a third quiet _plunk_ sound throwing off the rhythm of pacing. A staff, has to be. Alistair swings around the corner as casually as he can, folds his arms and says, "And just what do you think you're doing wandering around this late, hmm?" Therrin wheels around in alarm. "Up to no good, am I right?"

Therrin's grip on her staff relaxes. "I couldn't sleep."

"So you decided to take up haunting the hallway?"

Therrin winces. "I wish he hadn't put us up here."

Up… ? Ah. Haunting the hallway. Connor. Alistair's good mood evaporates. "He's not _actually_—"

"No, there's nothing. It's just a feeling," Therrin assures him, but she glances over her shoulder anyway, uneasy.

Alistair tries to sense the presence of any spirits and comes up with nothing. Though really, that doesn't mean there's nothing here. Or even if it does, it doesn't make being closed up inside these walls any easier. Suddenly, he'd rather be elsewhere, himself. "You know, it gets so stuffy in the castle in summertime," he says on impulse. "I do know a place with a good breeze, though. Come on."

The corridors are quiet, the few lights still burning are low, and they walk along in companionable silence without interruption, out of the castle, into the night. The half-door to the stables creaks when he opens it and Therrin peeks in. "Is this... ?"

"The stables, yes. The finest accommodations in all of Ferelden, I'll have you know. Fit for a king… 's bastard." He tugs her along, letting the door smack closed behind them. "It's not fancy."

"I don't care."

"Good." There _is_ a breeze and it's not exactly cool, but it's fresher than the castle air had been by far. It carries in the murky scent of Lake Calenhad, and beside him Therrin breathes in deeply and sits in the straw-filled corner when he does. "I could get you a blanket. It would smell like dogs, but…"

"I don't need one." She curls into his side, pillowing her head on his shoulder and holding on.

"Better?"

She nods. "You slept in here?"

"Raised by the hounds, remember. I could bark before I could talk." The words seem to twist the second they're off his tongue, not as funny as they were in his head.

"Woof," Therrin mumbles, breath puffing against his neck.

"_Ha_. Clever. Sleep, you," he says, giving her a nudge with his elbow for emphasis. As though it were a royal command, she does, and though Alistair's sure he's not going to be able to drift off, not here in the dark with a restless mage and years of memories pressing close, the next thing he sees is Leliana's face when she comes to fetch them in the morning.

-oOo-

The sight of Loghain is a shock in ways Alistair doesn't expect. "Remind me why we couldn't have just killed him then," he says later to the room at large, hands clenched hard enough to hurt. He _knows_ the reasons but they don't make it any easier to bear, and he'd heard Oghren talk about berserker rage before but he hadn't really known it for himself until Loghain was in front of him in the flesh, sneering at all of them, reciting the same infuriating lies about the Grey Wardens that'd needled Alistair since Ostagar.

It's different coming from people who don't know the truth and are only repeating what they've heard. When the lies come out of the mouth of the traitor who invented them, that's a whole different kind of wrong.

"How many reasons do you want?" Arl Eamon asks, entirely too calm.

"It would create more problems than it would solve, I think," Therrin says, not looking up from her papers.

"They might be worth it."

"Alistair—"

"He's already said the Grey Wardens are murderers and traitors," Therrin interrupts the Arl. "If you kill him in cold blood in a hallway, you kind of prove his point."

_Damn_. He hadn't considered that. "He wouldn't be around to enjoy it, though. That's the part _I_ care about."

"And neither of us would live long enough to enjoy him not enjoying it." Therrin points out, flipping a page over. "I'd really rather get out of this city alive. If we kill him—"

"When," Alistair corrects. "It's a when."

"When we kill him—"

"And I think that should be 'I.' As in, when I kill him."

Therrin looks up from her papers, annoyed for a second before her expression softens. "He's all yours."

Alistair grins, an expression that feels weird on his face, too sharp for happiness or humor. "That's all I ask."

-oOo-

It's a cheering discovery to find not _everyone_ in Denerim has lined up to kiss Loghain's arse. The maid Erlina's plan to rescue Anora isn't exactly all that cunning or guaranteed to work, but it's a start. Alistair can work with a start. Maker knows he's worked with much less.

And besides, even non-cunning plans have their perks. Watching Therrin try to struggle into a suit of armor, for one. Leliana doesn't have any trouble and Dog doesn't need any and of course it's as natural as breathing for Alistair. But with Therrin there's a lot of bending and twisting and lip-biting as the pieces go on and it's all very entertaining. "You missed a buckle," he points out helpfully, wondering from the frustrated flush on Therrin's face if he ought to help or if he can stand there a little bit longer trying not to laugh.

She swears under her breath and the air around them seems to get colder all of a sudden, and Alistair volunteers to help for the sake of kindness and not having to pick ice out of his collar. Again.

It's no surprise at all when the not-particularly-cunning plan gets suddenly more complicated. What is a surprise, though it shouldn't be, is the state of the dungeons. The halls reek of blood and less pleasant fluids, and though he tries to step around the puddles of suspicious origins, there's only so much attention he can give the matter in the heat of battle. _These are your allies_, he thinks at Loghain, watching the torturers fall to blades and arrows and spells. There are bodies in the cages, bodies stretched out dead on torture devices, bodies heaped on the floor. It's not surprising to find that the vilest of people stand together.

In the end, Howe dies snarling but he _does_ die, and that's all that matters. One less ally for Loghain is one less enemy breathing down his neck, one less step between him and justice—for the poor sods they free from the dungeon's cells, for the slandered, murdered Grey Wardens, for all of Ferelden.

And then of course Cauthrien shows up and when Therrin looks to Anora for help, it all goes south in a big bloody hurry.

-oOo-

Waking up in prison is somehow even less fun than it sounds. Every bit of him aches and the pile of straw isn't much insulation between his naked skin and the cold stone of the floor, and for a moment all he can think is _ow_ before his eyes snap open and he remembers what got him here in the first place.

Cauthrien. The ambush. He'd thought they were all going to die. There's a moment's panic as he opens his gritty eyes and thinks the cell is empty but no, Therrin is slumped over on her own pile of straw, still out cold. No sign of Leliana or Dog, _Maker_ let them have escaped the fighting, let Arl Eamon know they're here...

_And what is _he_ going to do about it?_

Alistair crawls over to Therrin and shakes her shoulder. "Hey." No response. "Therrin." He gives another shake, firmer, and she makes a small pained noise in her sleep, and he hopes belatedly he wasn't shaking a broken bone or two.

Alistair takes a good long look around the cell, searching for any hint of a weakness that might allow an escape and not finding a one. The hallway beyond is empty save for the reek of fluids and filth and the sounds of other prisoners screaming somewhere in the darkness beyond.

Not encouraging. _You've been in worse spots than this_, he tells himself, but just then he can't think of a one. He sits carefully, trying not to jostle his new collection of bruises, and hopes Loghain won't have them executed before the others have a chance to mount a rescue.

-oOo-

The others _are_ going to mount a rescue, Alistair tells himself for the thousandth time. Any time now. Really.

"Just wait," Alistair says to Therrin. "You'll see. Oghren and Dog, at least. Leliana, maybe. Wynne? Probably not Wynne." But Therrin doesn't answer, because Therrin is still out cold. Something icy snakes its way down Alistair's throat. If she'd been _that_ seriously hurt, he hadn't seen it. Could he have missed it in the clamor? "Look, I know this might be a bad time," Alistair says, pushing a dirty lock of hair back from her face, "but it would really be great if you could wake up and get us _out_ of this."

"Hrng?" His heart gives a funny sideways jump when Therrin winces, blinks twice, and raises a hand to her face to block out the dim light. Oh, Maker, yes_, thank you_. He'd almost managed to convince himself that everything was going to be okay but when that being-okay depends on _him_, it's always a bit shakier. "Where are we?" Therrin says, thick as though talking around a mouthful of socks.

"Prison!" he tells her brightly, lightheaded with relief and feeling only a little demented. "If you ever wanted to see Fort Drakon from the inside, this is your lucky day."

Therrin blinks at him again like he's a Fade-vision, or maybe some odd demon come to torment her by being supremely unhelpful. She rolls to her side, winces again, and sits with a look at the door. "We've got to get out of here."

"Funny, I thought the same thing."

"Have you looked for a way out?"

"Yes. Sad lack of secret passages they put in these cells nowadays, though. You'd think they didn't want people breaking out." He shifts on the straw, uncomfortable in all sorts of new and interesting ways. "You know, being in here with half of Ferelden wanting to kill me makes me think, hey, being a templar might not have been so bad."

Therrin's head swivels around.

"Kidding. Mostly."

She takes this in quietly, rubbing her naked arms for warmth. "And then it might have been you at the Circle Tower when Duncan came looking for recruits, and that would've ended badly."

"Why?"

Her grin is weak and cracks the dried blood on her face. "Because you would have shoved me down a flight of stairs if it meant you getting to Duncan first."

"I would _not_," Alistair insists, shocked. "I happen to be a gentleman." He considers the bizarre might-have-been with consternation before deciding, "I would have asked you nicely to get out of the way."

But Therrin's already peering out through the bars into the space beyond, not really listening. "Have you seen any guards?"

"Not yet. If the screaming from down the hall is any indication, they might be working their way our direction."

"Good. We can get a key off one of them."

Optimism? Or maybe she'd hit her head. Sometimes it was hard to tell. "And this guard is just going to hand it over if we ask nicely, right?"

Therrin gives a humorless laugh that apparently hurts, and starts on a healing spell that twines around them both in pale blue streamers of light. His bruises ease at once, a dozen aches going loose as the spell patches him back together. "We might have to ask really, really nicely," she says with a grimace, and of course _really, really nicely_ means exactly what he thinks it does.


	13. Landsmeet

A/N: The rest of the story is now complete, and I'll post one chapter per day from now through Friday.

* * *

Every hour they spend chasing down allies and evidence is an hour gone, chewing up the time and giving only meager progress in return. Restlessness makes him itchy, inside and out, as though each second draining passing by leaves tiny bites on his skin.

It doesn't help that all Alistair wants to do is scrape together what they've got and make their move before Loghain gets the chance to organize against them again, and all Therrin wants to do is go doggedly slow about the whole thing. _Lists_ of potential allies aren't going to win the Landsmeet.

Therrin doesn't seem to appreciate it when Alistair tells her so.

Hunting for evidence in the alienage is easier. As soon as they catch wind of proof, real indisputable proof of crime and evil and very bad things, Alistair wants it with everything in his heart. He wants to hold it in his hands and take it to the Landsmeet, show it to everyone in Denerim, climb to the top of the Cathedral and shout it out every hour on the hour: _Loghain's the traitor and_ _the darkspawn are coming so get your heads on straight and _do_ something about it, for once! _

Naturally, even the easiest-looking paths have moments that twist the whole thing around. When the Tevinter mage who'd been the elf-stealing ringleader tries to offer up his compromise—proof of Loghain's slave-dealing, here for the taking if only they let him go—it's shameful how much Alistair wants to take him up on it. Much as he despises the man in front of him, much as the horror on the faces of the captive elves jabs at him like a roomful of knives, indisputable proof against Loghain is almost, _almost_ worth it. "We're not actually thinking about this?" he protests under his breath, weakly, because he most certainly is thinking about it. At length. "I feel dirty."

"You _are_ dirty," Morrigan reminds him.

"No," Therrin answers, and his hopes sink at once, his heart traitorous and ignoble as it's ever been. "We're not thinking about this."

But Alistair cheers up at once when Therrin's plan turns out to be killing the slaver and taking the proof off his corpse. Always more than one solution, he thinks to himself, pleased at the crinkle of the documents in his pocket. Now there isn't anything between him and action but the getting there, and it's all he can do to keep from sprinting all the way toward the high shape of Arl Eamon's estate outlined by the last rays of sun in the sky.

-oOo-

The sight of the palace makes his chest go a little tight. Not because this might have been home if things had worked out differently a long time ago—even climbing the steps of the palace, he has no illusions about belonging here—but because the distance between himself and what has to be the turning point of the whole war can be measured in steps. Once the nobles know the truth, he thinks, and his mind stops there, because there aren't any alternatives. They'll do what's right, what they have to do.

And of course when they make it into the chamber Loghain is in mid-bray, shouting at everyone about the Orlesians and Alistair's unsuitability for the throne, and that's about where the crowd begins to notice them and Loghain turns.

_Awkward_.

It quickly becomes less awkward when the attention turns to Therrin, and really, as much as he'd been impatient in the last few days while she played scholar and interviewed everyone in the Gnawed Noble for Maker-knew-what, he's glad of it now. _You're an evil bastard and I hate you _wouldn't have been much of an argument against Loghain on its own, but 'here's proof you collaborated to sell Fereldans into slavery' is, and 'you've interfered with the operations of the Chantry' is, certainly, and 'the Blight is coming and you haven't lifted a finger to stop it' is undeniable.

Then Anora shows up and the bottom drops out of it almost faster than he can follow.

The tone of the hubbub shifts, an ugly chorus of voices rallying against them in favor of Loghain, and for a moment it's such a shock Alistair can only stand numbly in place, disbelieving. All the evidence, every scrap of information they'd fought and bled for laid before the Landsmeet like a feast, and the nobles look through it, past it, and see what they want to see.

Any faith he'd had that the nobility of Ferelden was made up of wiser men, better men, dies as the voices rise.

Loghain accuses them of treason and Alistair only has time to think _that's rich, coming from you_ before Loghain calls for Alistair and Eamon and Therrin to be taken away for execution. In the heart-stopping moment as the guards step forward Alistair can see his end, uglier than he'd ever imagined it: a traitor's death at the hands of the worst kind of traitor, the Blight unchecked through all of Ferelden, the Wardens remembered only by Loghain's slander, murdered and unmourned.

_I was going to put up a statue for Duncan_, he thinks, numb, watching the guards advance. _Too late now. _Not without a fight, though. He draws his sword a second before the first spell flares beside him and there's no time to think because the chamber erupts in all-out war.

It shouldn't be satisfying to hear the voices that had been raised against him only moments before yelp in alarm, scrambling to safety as the battle is joined, but it is anyway. He and Therrin had fought too long together to be separated easily, even by the mob of guards that swarm in from all directions trying to cut them off. Alistair's flaming sword hisses as he thrusts, and he steps easily through the neat gaps Therrin leaves him in her seething blizzard, knocking away the guard that gets too close to her, and then two and then another four of them, watching frost take them all as they fall into the ravenous wind and ice. There's no way the palace guards could have been prepared for a team like this—

The brief flash of satisfaction snaps when he's tackled and borne to the ground by a half-dozen men doggedly trying to carry out Loghain's order, and no matter how Alistair struggles he can't get free. Something in his shoulder twists, pops, and white stars dance in his vision as the wind gets pummeled out of him, as he digs in and tries to avoid being dragged to his own execution.

He's been hauled to his feet by the time the Revered Mother calls for an end to the fighting, and Alistair spits blood and wonders why she couldn't have done that in the first place. He tries to move the fingers of his sword-arm and can't quite manage, and he gulps down a sick, voiceless panic, hardly listening to Therrin talk to—he can't remember her name, one of the banns—until he catches something about single combat and Loghain and at that something inside Alistair sits up and says _yes! yes! me! _

He'll do it with the bare hand of his one good arm, if he has to. But somehow Therrin doesn't seem to have noticed his fervent need to be chosen. "I should do it," he says, and she still doesn't hear him. He trips on the rug and tries not to stumble, and the few guards with swords still drawn watch him as though it might be a feint leading into another attack instead of a moment's clumsiness. He recovers and repeats himself, but he only snags Therrin's attention when her healing spell catches him in its wide circle, magic driving in right to the center of his damaged shoulder like a jabbing finger.

"You're hurt," she points out. As though that was a command Wynne's hands light up with a readied spell that washes over him at once, his shoulder set to rights, his fingers tingling as the feeling returns and he tests a fist.

"It's not that bad," he insists, intent only on Therrin. "I'm fine. This is my fight, you know it."

She looks him over, and then looks to Loghain—matching them up?—and when she turns back she says low enough only he can hear, "No. We need to win or we're not getting out of here alive." His left eye starts stinging—from dripping blood above his eyebrow, he realizes, and wipes it away—and while he's still blinking, she says, "Let me."

Through his disappointment he tries on the alien idea and ridiculous words, and finds they don't fit his mouth or brain at all. "_Let_ you? As in… allow?"

"I'd be fighting for you," she points out.

What a bizarre idea. "No. Fighting for _us_," he says. "For the Wardens."

Therrin nods like that was a decision, which it wasn't, and announces she'll fight Loghain herself.

-oOo-

The fight takes, by his best estimate, forever. Therrin and Loghain circle and Alistair's heart takes a dive down to his gut, doubt spread out like a sea all around him. Faith in Therrin or not, he knows how these _mage versus heavily armored man with a sword_ battles tend to go. There's an entire system at the Circle of Magi that depends on it; he'd seen it for himself, over and over. It had already been harder than he could have believed to lose Duncan, to lose the Wardens, to lose everything else to Loghain. Losing Therrin too would be beyond his capacity to bear.

_You probably won't have to bear it for long, _he reminds himself_. Or anything, ever again._

For some reason there's no comfort in that at all. Alistair holds his breath and watches the fight, trying to keep his mouth shut. A dozen times, a hundred, he wants to shout instructions, warnings, _would you please stop this and let me do that?_ The endless spiral of attack-and-retreat-and-heal drags on until the daylight begins to fade at the windows, until patches of carpet squelch with blood and the melted ice of spells.

When the fountain of lightning arcs across Loghain's face Alistair thinks it might be over, and again—more terribly—when Loghain knocks Therrin's staff from her hands to clatter against the wall. When she lunges for it Loghain is there, looming wolflike between Therrin and her staff, driving her toward the open middle of the chamber, and Alistair's vision narrows as his pulse pounds in his ears because rules or not, laws or not, he _will_ race in there swinging.

It doesn't come to that. Instead, a whirlwind of lightning pins Loghain in place, unable to escape, the spell wide and wild enough to send the assembled nobles shrieking away from the balconies.

Alistair watches Loghain's armored silhouette fall, outlined by crackling blue light, and shouts for a very different reason, eyes stinging in a way that has nothing to do with the smoke hanging in the air. _Take that!_ he thinks, snarling the idea at every one of the assembled nobles who'd sided against them, watching as Loghain concedes the duel. _Look—_

But his anger falters as Wynne pushes past him to get to Therrin and Alistair realizes how close a fight it really was. Magic more complicated and urgent than had fixed his shoulder doesn't dispel the ashen look of Therrin's skin or a hollow-eyed exhaustion that makes her stagger as she leans down to collect her broken staff.

It had been a pretty thing, not so long ago, rolling smoothly beneath her palms. Now the whole length is scarred by sword-blows, so eaten away Alistair isn't surprised in the slightest to notice the magic it had once held is gone. Therrin seems to realize it a second after he does, because for a moment grief clouds her face like it's a friend who died, instead of a tool that she used up saving her life.

But it still isn't over—how is it not over, after all this?—and still, kneeling and beaten, all Loghain wants to do is talk about Maric, and all Alistair wants Loghain to do is die.

But Anora is making a scene, which is to be expected, and Riordan calls for Loghain to undergo the Joining which is… okay, _not_ expected, but Therrin's a reasonable person. She listens, because she always listens, and in the end she steps aside, clearing a path, grimmer than ever. "Alistair."

_Go kill this man_. Right. Message received. For Duncan, for every Grey Warden who never made it out of Ostagar, for Cailan, for all of Ferelden, wronged.

One swing of his blade is all it takes. Loghain dies without another word, and when the head goes one way and the body another Alistair takes a deep breath, expecting to feel more than he does. He'd tried so hard to get here, worked so long for this moment, and still it doesn't quiet the outrage inside him.

It isn't justice, not even close. Maybe it's a start.

But Eamon decides that now is the time to settle the matter of kingship once and for all—_stupid_, Alistair thinks, still holding the bloody blade and staring in numb surprise, _Anora wants to be queen and I don't want to be king, this is _really_ not that hard—_

But Therrin and Anora have little to say to one another over the river of Loghain's blood, and a thick, queasy feeling begins to crawl up from Alistair's stomach. He only has time to think wait-no-_what?_ before the words register, and Alistair stands there and pleads with his eyes—_don't do this_—and Therrin looks to him and sees it, and in that endless, terrible moment he knows she understands, and she does it anyway.


	14. Done

Half an hour alone in a bedroom that isn't his does nothing to ease the feeling of numb incredulity as Alistair sits with his head in his hands and tries to piece it all together. The sense of having his life sheared off doesn't subside—everything has changed, everything, and there's no choice now but to follow the new path before him and hope he doesn't screw it up. His dream of ending the Blight and rebuilding the Wardens evaporates before his eyes, dear and insubstantial as the Fade-dream of Goldanna's children. Sweet, but not real. It doesn't even begin to lessen the pain of the loss.

He squeezes his eyes closed but it doesn't stop the knowledge of what comes next.

When he finds the entire party squeezed into the one room it makes it worse and better at once—he didn't want an audience, not for this, but at least he can say it once and be done—and Therrin's face lights up in naked relief at the sight of him as he stands in the doorway. "There you are. I was beginning to worry."

"No. Don't worry," he says, but it comes out leaden. "We need to talk."

-oOo-

"Wait," Therrin insists, following him into the hallway and banging the door closed behind her. "Alistair."

Alistair stops, almost unwilling. He doesn't want to wait, _absolutely_ doesn't want to talk for one more second. He'd thought that had been clear enough. The brittle calm that had borne him through that conversation seems nearly miraculous and just as nearly spent. But he can hear Therrin's footsteps on the stone, and gives up on the idea of it being over for a little while longer. "Yes?"

She stops an arm's length away, accusation on her face, and pain, and some smears of blood. He wonders, as she opens her mouth to speak and nothing comes out, if it's her blood or Loghain's, and then decides it doesn't matter. Fatigue and heartsickness seem to have wrenched him from himself, made him a golem going through the motions of being alive, his heart run off somewhere to hide like a wounded animal. Therrin's hands draw useless gestures in the air as if she could pull the right words from the space between them. "_Why?_" she manages, finally.

"I could ask you the same thing," he says, and immediately wishes he hadn't. None of that matters, now. He has other things to think of, things he doesn't even know about yet, a kingdom's worth of concerns that have nothing to do with the woman in front of him.

"I didn't see a better way," Therrin admits, all honesty and inadvertent insult, and Alistair could laugh and cry and strangle her all at the same time. A bastard prince, a pitiful excuse for a templar trainee, a second-least-senior Warden… and now king because he was the lesser of the available evils.

"Thanks," he says, around a lump in his throat the size of Denerim.

"I'm sorry—"

"Sorry doesn't change things," Alistair says, louder than he intends. "Sorry doesn't… look. It's done. There's no fixing it now."

"But why now?" Her voice cracks. "And in front of everyone? Was that some sort of revenge for making you king?"

"Is that what you think?" Alistair stares at her, disbelieving. "That was me carrying out my duty. The duty that _you_ put on my shoulders, remember. You can't be as surprised as all this."

"Surprised that you dropped me like a rock in front of everyone we know because I don't have the right kind of blood for you, yes, you could say that was a surprise," she bites out. "I thought—"

"No," he interrupts, "you didn't. I don't know when you _stopped_ thinking, but I do know it didn't have anything to do with this." Or maybe it had. Maybe it was love that didn't have anything to do with this. Maybe he'd been kidding himself all this time, pouring out every drop of himself for someone who didn't love him back. Not enough.

Not enough.

"You could have said something," Therrin barrels on, and Alistair can feel the protest leaping to his tongue as she says, "You didn't have to accept it and stand up there and give a speech!"

"Right, because I had _so_ much choice in the matter."

"You did!" she insists, fervently as though she really believes it.

"I'm only doing what you wanted," he tries to explain.

"This isn't what I wanted!"

"You can't," he begins, and stops because trying to twist his head around the skewed logic of it all is impossible. "You can't make me a king and then want me not to _act_ like a king. You chose this," he reminds her, because maybe she's forgotten. "I have duties, because of you. Responsibilities. I have to see it through, now. I thought I made that clear."

"You should have told me," she insists. "Before. You shouldn't have kept all that from me until it was too late."

"Told you what?" Alistair asks, mystified. What _hadn't_ they talked about, over the weeks and months? Except… "Did you think we could still be together if I took the throne?" The calm from before evaporates all at once at her stupidly stricken expression, all the confirmation he needs, and he could scream in frustration. Any other person in the whole of Ferelden wouldn't need it spelled out in small words, but Therrin Amell… "You really did, didn't you? A mage can't be a queen, if that's what you were after. The whole country would riot."

"I don't care about that," she says hotly, scrubbing away tears to glare at him. "I never cared about a title. But you should have told me about blood, and children, and…" she searches for words, futilely, before snapping, "and _everything_, instead of springing it on me like this. How was I supposed to know any of that when you didn't tell me?"

Alistair reaches for the calm that had numbed everything before, but there's nothing left of it. He tries to force his voice level anyway. "Nothing would have made me happier than to stay with you. For the rest of my life," he admits, eyes stinging, momentarily satisfied at the stunned look on her face. "But I can't do that anymore. Because of you. Because of the decision you've made, to make me king. I don't have any choice but to live with everything that means. And right now, neither do you."

There's something else in Therrin's expression underneath the anger and hurt and mottled blotchy patches on her cheeks. Disappointment? A strange look, like he'd turned into something loathsome and crawly when he hadn't noticed. "You didn't make the choice yourself."

"What?"

"You don't make choices," she insists. "Every time it gets hard. Every time. You back away and make me choose."

"I do _not_."

"With Connor," she says, advancing a step. "With the dwarves. With the elves. With the Landsmeet. You always do this, you always make me make the choices, and the only thing you do later is tell me I'm wrong!"

"Oh, and Maker forbid I second-guess the _Warden_," Alistair snaps, not backing down an inch. "Someone has to doubt you now and then because Maker knows you'd never think to do it yourself!"

She stares at him. "And that's your job?"

"My job is to rule a country that doesn't want me!"

"If you'd _said_ something it wouldn't have to be!"

"But it is now, isn't it?" he demands, face hot and voice rising. "_So_ sorry you can't have it both ways, but I can't only be a king when it's convenient for you and come running like a hound when it's not!"

Therrin shakes her head, incredulous. "That isn't what I want."

"I don't _care_ what you want!" says Alistair, and the truth of it a perverse, painful sort of relief. "I don't. Go cry to one of the others if you want to. I don't care anymore." He looks back at the door to the rest of the party and realizes it's open, and from here he can see Leliana looking away and Morrigan watching with interest, following every word.

Great.

"I'm _done_," he announces to Therrin and the assembled companions and the world at large, and with the words the feeling seems to shatter inside him, as though the declaration is the push of will that breaks the spell once and for all. A clean break.

_Done_.

He turns away again and this time no one follows him, and it feels like the only mercy of the entire Maker-forsaken day.


	15. Ritual

The road to Redcliffe seems longer than it ever had before. They take advantage of the long late-summer days, staying on the march from dawn to dusk, stopping to make camp with none of the easy peace of the days before. The companions seem to sprawl, in travel and sleep both, as though his relationship with Therrin had been the anchor that had held everyone moored in place around them, and without it everyone begins to drift. He almost thinks it's his imagination, until he goes on watch and finds the perimeter of the camp larger than usual, every tent seeming to push the others away.

Dog growls at him whenever he gets too close, but Dog's version of too close seems to be 'in Ferelden,' and there's nothing he can do about that but ignore it.

Alistair keeps his mind on the task at hand, on the darkspawn horde and the battle ahead, more than ready to take this bottomless, inescapable anger and make it someone else's problem.

-oOo-

Redcliffe is embattled by the time they make it, which is so strange that at the sight of it Alistair can only stare for a moment. Four armies gathered here and still darkspawn make it all the way up into the keep? _Really? _The thought cuts through him like a blade of ice: maybe they're too late, maybe the horde is already victorious, their armies decimated, this handful of Redcliffe's soldiers all that's left to end the Blight.

The truth is better news, for once. When Riordan reveals that the horde is bound for Denerim, Therrin bursts out, "But we just _came_ from Denerim!" as though Riordan might double-check and come back with better information. Still, grudgingly as it is, Alistair can't help but agree a little. Months of preparation, endless hours of toil to collect the armies and have them gather together and now they're in the wrong place entirely?

But there's no helping it. The templars and dwarves are already camped outside the city, the elves due within hours.

Funny how much Alistair likes Riordan, even knowing almost nothing about the man. He'd been at Alistair's Joining, for one. He's about the only person in the world who still seems to think of Alistair as a Grey Warden instead of only a king-in-the-making or Therrin's lackey, and that alone makes him a better friend than almost anyone in Ferelden. Riordan's mention of Grey Warden business to be discussed later makes Alistair stand straighter with resolve, pleased for no reason he can name. He'd nearly forgotten how good it felt to be in a group of Wardens, even if three is a bit smaller than it had ever been before and even if two of those Wardens aren't on speaking terms.

It's the little things.

-oOo-

Somehow, Alistair had thought 'Grey Warden business' would be more administrative, less… grim. 'You might want to do some recruiting, after,' maybe, or 'I've been updating the records to reflect the losses at Ostagar and I had some questions.'

Not 'one out of three of us is going to die, and that's if we're lucky.' He can't seem to move beyond the thought or even much beyond Riordan's doorway, standing still as though his feet have grown roots and tunneled into the floor.

It isn't even just death, is it? It's total obliteration. The death of the soul and body, no afterlife, nothing left of you at all. His throat hurts when he swallows. "Wow."

One out of three, he thinks, feeling as though a giant invisible finger is pointed at his chest, the Maker deciding: _him_. Riordan's offer or not, it's one thing to chance death on the battlefield; it's very much another to run toward death as a goal. Death as a _victory_. It's almost too backwards to be real, and yet…

"I know," Therrin says, just as rooted in shock, voice shrunk down to almost nothing. He can almost feel the odds shift, the invisible finger swing to Therrin. One out of three.

No.

And _that's_ a realization every bit as dire as Riordan's news, painful as though the knowledge is clawing its way out from inside his heart: no matter how ugly and tangled it's gotten, no matter how much had gone wrong between them: no. It won't be her. Not if he has life still in him to stop it. Briefly the idea of taking her down to the cellars hangs in his mind, a quick tour that ends in _and this is the cage I locked myself in by accident, oh how unfortunate, you're trapped inside, I'll send someone to feed you and let you out once the Archdemon is dead._

Which leaves one out of two, he thinks, and those odds are enough to make his knees feel weak. "We should have just stayed in Denerim," he says, his head light, his voice far away. "Had a break from it all. Gone to the seaside."

"At least you don't have to go back." Her voice is faint, and for a second he thinks he's misheard. But no: "To Denerim," she clarifies at his confused expression.

He tries to make sense of this and can't. "Why wouldn't I go back to Denerim?"

She frowns. "Because you're going to be the king?" As though he's going to say _oh right, the king thing, good luck with the Archdemon, then! _"You'll be safe here."

"Safe," he echoes, disbelieving, because maybe this is some incredibly bad joke. "You can't honestly think I would stay in Redcliffe when the Archdemon is in Denerim." Except that apparently she can, he realizes, as though being the king is a better armor than anything he'd worn in the last year. Half a country between him and danger instead of only splintmail. "You know I can't do that."

"You should." She shivers. "You need to stay protected for when this is over. You have responsibilities."

"I'm a _Grey Warden_," he says, slow and clear enough even she can't miss the point. "_That_ is my responsibility."

For a second he thinks she'll argue. Instead, she looks down the hallway, empty except for the two of them, and says, "I know."

"Then why are we talking about this?"

"Because I wanted you to stay here," she says, as though that was perfectly reasonable instead of completely insane.

"Safe."

Therrin hesitates, like the word might be a trap. "Yes."

It only makes him tired. Months of effort seem to be crashing in all at once, wearing him down like a castle coming apart one stone at a time; thinking about this is only making it worse. "I can't do that," Alistair says again, and walks away before she can argue any more.

-oOo-

It isn't even half an hour before the knock comes at his door. It's Therrin, of course; no one else would come skulking around so late, probably. Not to see him. "If you're here to ask me to stay in Redcliffe the answer is no," he says, before the door is open all the way. "I already told you—"

"This isn't about that." She looks back in the direction of her room, troubled. "Can I come in?"

Alistair follows her glance down the empty hallway, wanting with everything in him to say no. "Couldn't you have picked a more sociable hour? We're supposed to be resting for the march tomorrow."

"It's important."

And dire, according to the look on her face. Alistair runs through a few possible scenarios that might prompt such an expression—maybe Dog died, or maybe someone refused to be a good puppet and dance when she told them to—and lets out a sigh, tired of arguing and tired of feeling this way and just… tired. "I _am_ the king," he reminds her, trying to shrug off his black mood. "Important is sort of my job, now. What is it? Cheese supplies run low? I had nothing to do with that, honestly, there must be rats down there."

She doesn't smile. "We need to talk."

Funny how those four words feel like being flattened with a hammer when you're on the receiving end. Or not funny, actually. "This doesn't have anything to do with Morrigan prowling around your room, does it?" He steps back to let her in and she walks to his bed and perches on the side of it, not really looking his way, which may as well be her screaming _guilty_ at the top of her lungs.

Maybe this is what happens when you know someone too long. You can't hide anything anymore. "Yes," she says, but it takes her a long time to work around to it, which gives him plenty of time to feel terrible about whatever undefined horror might be coming. "What if," she begins, and stops to study the floor, which is suddenly much more fascinating than his face. "What if one of us didn't have to die?"

"We won't have to, if Riordan takes the final blow himself," he says, though the words feel empty in his mouth. There had been too many months of being the only two Wardens between the darkspawn and the rest of Ferelden; the idea that someone better-prepared to take care of things is ready to shoulder the burden they've carried this far feels… false. "Or if you mean running away, but we can't do that. Except," he says, frowning, "you don't mean that, do you?"

Therrin shakes her head. "There's a ritual."

"Of Morrigan's?" _The_ Morrigan, she of the endless spite and evil that corrupts everything she touches? Morrigan's evil ritual. Morrigan's evil staff. Morrigan's evil soup spoon.

Therrin finally looks at him. "She wants you to sleep with her."

He can't help but laugh, as tired as he is, as strange as this whole conversation is. "Right. Good one. This is payback, isn't it? For all the jokes on the road. Except…" The moment's humor fades. "You're not joking, are you?"

She shakes her head, wordless and grim, and before he can say _then just get on with it!_ she goes on, "The ritual requires that you sleep with Morrigan. It'll produce a child—"

"What?!"

"—and it will absorb the essence of the Old God, destroying the Archdemon—"

"Therrin."

"—and no one will have to—"

_"Therrin!"_

She stops, fingers clenched in the hem of her robe.

"You're telling me," he starts, trying to make sense of this… this incredibly stupid idea, which is so wrong in so many ways he doesn't know where to start, "you want me to _impregnate_ Morrigan in some sort of magic sex rite?"

Therrin hesitates. "Yes."

"But… how do… are you even remotely aware of how this sounds? This is crazy. You _know_ this is crazy," he insists, voice rising, some sliver of his mind still expecting her to point and laugh and say _gotcha!_ She doesn't. "Why would Morrigan even want something like this? She doesn't even like me! And… and for what, some baby with an Archdemon inside it? How does that help anything at all?"

"An Old God," Therrin says. "The Archdemon would still be destroyed."

"Oh, that's just great. That makes everything better. An Old God. Just the sort of thing I want to see marching up to the castle gates with an army—my bastard child with a god inside it."

"She said you'd never see it again. Or her."

"And you believe her." Therrin doesn't answer. Alistair sinks into the chair across from her, trying to sort it all out and failing, utterly. "Setting aside the fact that this is all absolutely crazy, are you _really_ asking me to do this?"

It was a mistake to sit down. They're too close like this, and they hadn't been since before the Landsmeet. This close he can almost see the thoughts ordering themselves behind her eyes, feels naked when she looks at him.

Therrin nods, slowly. "Do you trust me?"

"You, yes," he says at once, "Morrigan, no."

"I wouldn't ask if I didn't think it was important." She watches his face, looking as though she might be memorizing it, as if this is the last time she'll ever see him. "I want you to live," she confesses, voice unsteady. "I want to live."

"I want you to live too," he admits before he can think to keep quiet, and he can almost feel all his arguments dying, objections shredding to pieces in the face of his stupid feelings that do no one any good at all.

-oOo-

It nearly doesn't work. It's an unpleasant surprise of the highest order to discover that you really can cringe with your entire body, ritual or no, as though his flesh is trying to protest the entire idea by shutting down completely.

That it makes Morrigan angry is only a slight consolation, and even that fades when she snaps, "You might have told me you were unable."

"I'm not. It must be you," he accuses, hot all over from embarrassment and anger and a coiling feeling in his gut that goes repelled every time she touches him.

"Indeed?" Morrigan leans back, her mouth a grim slash in her face. "Shall I fetch Therrin, then? Explain your current difficulty and ask assistance—"

_"Shut up." _The world goes red with fury and it isn't right, not like this, and it's no relief at all to discover that anger works where other passions fail. When it's over he stumbles back out into the hallway on legs hardly steady enough to hold him, queasy and overwhelmed and more tired than he has ever been in his life.


	16. Archdemon

For a forced march there's precious little complaining, if only because no one has time or energy to spare. They make good time and spirits seem… well, not high, but decent, considering they're walking practically into the Archdemon's teeth. At one brief rest by the roadside Wynne and Leliana discuss plans for after the battle and the conversation spreads as though it's contagious—Sten will return home, no surprise, Leliana wants to return to the Sacred Ashes, Wynne wants to go rebuild the Circle. Alistair ducks away before anyone can ask him what he intends to do. _If_ anyone would bother to ask. It all seems rather set in stone, from here, unless he doesn't survive that long.

A rustling through the brush is Therrin, following. "Is everything all right?"

_It would be if you'd leave me alone_. "Fine," he says instead. "I just didn't want to sit around and chat about a future I might not have."

She freezes. "Did the ritual—"

"I'm not going to talk about that." He would erase it from his mind entirely if it could; ignoring it is a poor substitute but it's all he's got. But Therrin's fear and surprise might as well be painted all over her face as she looks at him, and it pries the truth out of him unwilling. "I did it, yes. If that's what you're worried about. For all the good it does us." She looks at him warily, not understanding. "You know Morrigan would lie to get what she wanted," he explains. "Lie about helping us survive the Archdemon, or about why she was here in the first place. Lie her way into your friendship to get you to do what she says," he finishes, twisting the knife as the color drains from Therrin's face. "For all either of us know we've given her exactly what she wanted and we're going to die anyway."

She thinks this over in shaken silence, still as the dead tree trunks around them, and finally says with no conviction at all, "I think you're wrong."

He grimaces, unhappy in certainty. "No, you don't."

When they crest the hill that reveals Denerim in the distance Alistair can see the Archdemon above it, an unnatural dark shape slicing through the sky. How many people are dying by the minute in Denerim, trapped within the city walls? Hiding in their homes? How long has the horde been there, tearing his city to pieces?

Beside him, Therrin tracks the flight of the Archdemon with her eyes, and behind her, the men have seen it, too.

He hadn't really thought about giving a speech but it seems the right thing to do just then, a kingly action, and afterward as the men rally to fight he can't help but feel a bit like a genius. Not only because the speech was kind of amazing (even though it was, wasn't it?), but because the gap between king and himself seems to have narrowed because of it.

Maybe this taking the throne business isn't as impossible as he'd first thought. Maybe it will become more manageable over time.

If he gets time, he reminds himself, and his good mood vanishes in an instant.

-oOo-

At the city gates the extent of the damage becomes clearer, what hope he'd had of getting in before the darkspawn could do too much harm fading. Riordan talks of generals in the city and of luring the dragon's attention from somewhere high, and each moment they stand there talking is another moment that people are dying as the darkspawn pour like a murderous tide over the city.

It's early afternoon when they leave the bulk of their companions at the city gates and midnight by the time they reach the alienage, wading through an ocean of blood beneath the low-hanging smoke that's all they can see of the sky. There are so many dead that they run together in his memory, bodies sprawled across the cobbles of the market and through the mud of the alienage, dogs and unarmed citizens and soldiers and darkspawn all left where they fell. Time seems to bleed away, meaningless in the dark, until it feels as though he's fighting a war without beginning or end.

Too many times the familiarity of it all makes the horrors of battle even worse. Just there in the market he'd walked arm-in-arm with Therrin, whiling away an afternoon as their friends scattered to the shops, but now ashes and blood are all over the road, the Chanter's board smashed nearly to kindling, the portcullis to Arl Eamon's estate blackened by fire. It feels like his home being invaded, fouled that much more by every darkspawn that makes its way past the city gates.

He catches glimpses of the other armies now and again, the elves making a pincushion of an ogre, the templars slashing their way through a pocket of emissaries, the dwarves rushing at swarms of darkspawn with axes and war cries, and he can't imagine how much worse this battle would be without them. At least a hundred times he thinks that he is going to die before he can ever make it to the Archdemon. It seems like a miracle to actually arrive at the base of Fort Drakon, sometime deep in the night with no trace of dawn on the horizon. "I never thought I'd be trying to get back _into_ prison," he tells Therrin as they wrestle open the tall doors, but she doesn't get the chance to reply because there are more darkspawn on the other side of the doorway, waiting.

There seems to be no end to them. Gaining ground is such a struggle that the idea runs like a thread through his mind: the darkspawn are unending but his strength isn't, and Therrin's magic isn't, and Leliana's arrows and the army's soldiers aren't unending, certainly. More resources are being ground away with every minute the battle drags on. At this rate, they're not going to have anything left if they actually _do_ make it to the Archdemon.

Maybe it's for the best he hadn't put too much faith in the idea of surviving.

But they finally make it to the top of Fort Drakon, and when they do, the Archdemon is already there. No nightmare could have prepared him for the sight of it before him in the flesh, nor for the howling of the taint in his blood at its closeness. It blots out everything else in his head for a second, overpowering in immensity even as he races out of the way of the corrosive magic it spews his direction. _There's no way_, he thinks as the armies race in behind him, and then there isn't time to think at all.

Arrows seem to do little to pierce the Archdemon's hide, and swords fare little better. _We should have had mages_, Alistair thinks; the templars are dropping too fast to follow, crushed and torn apart as though their armor is made of eggshells instead of steel.

The swarms of darkspawn that draw their attention away from the dragon are almost worse—leaving them open, vulnerable, wearing them down slowly, as if they weren't worn down enough before. It's hard enough to fight the dragon without being pummeled from all directions by darkspawn, but there seems to be no alternative but to fight and fight and keep fighting until every last one of them dies. Alistair stumbles over the bodies of the fallen on his way to the ballista, darkspawn and elves and once, Dog, who yelps at the accidental kick and limps back to his feet, heading for Therrin. And still it isn't _enough_. As the light of morning begins to pierce through the clouds the Archdemon seems hardly touched, even as their armies lie decimated and Alistair's arms feel leaden, the sword in his hand heavy as a boulder.

"We need to finish this!" he yells to Therrin, but she doesn't seem to hear him for the noise of the fight.

It feels like another Age of hopeless, endless battle before the unthinkable happens, so impossible he hadn't realized he'd begun to believe it would never be over: the Archdemon gives a roar that seems to tear the sky to pieces and it falls, rattling the stone, wings thrashing as it collapses to the rooftop, dying in front of them.

But not dead. Not yet.

The wind picks up and blows the smoke away for a few seconds, clearing the haze of the battlefield. From here he can see Therrin, bloody and empty-handed, magic spent, staring at the dragon before she looks at him—for the last time, isn't it, if Morrigan lied?—and for a moment his heart seems to break all over again. His sword is in his hand and there's almost nothing left of him to give; what's left will have to be enough.

But Therrin breaks into a run and Alistair watches, stupefied, the blade in his hands still readied. _You don't have any magic_, he thinks, as though he could argue with her from here, _what in the Maker's name—_

She hardly slows down to grab the hilt of an abandoned sword, and by the time he puts it together it's already too late. He shouts her name as she hurtles toward the Archdemon but it doesn't do any good. Therrin drives the blade up into the dragon's unprotected throat and then down through its skull when it collapses, and with that one stroke it all ends and the world erupts in light.


	17. Aftermath

It feels like a bad omen to have Therrin and what's left of Riordan's body in the same room, laid out not far from one another as though both of them are ready to burn. Wynne had said she would wake soon and Alistair keeps waiting for her eyes to open but they don't, and so he frets without respite, keeping watch and waiting for the worst. Maybe she'd lived and maybe she hadn't; maybe this is some last cruel joke of Morrigan's after all. Maybe the child didn't take and the Archdemon had nowhere to go but into Therrin's body; maybe when she opens her eyes there will be an Archdemon behind them and nothing left of Therrin at all.

He doesn't want to think about what he'll have to do if that happens.

But his worst imaginings don't come true. After a while Therrin makes a hiccupping sound in her sleep and sits bolt upright, wild-eyed and fearful until she sees him and relaxes, not quite all the way. "Alistair." She looks around the room, puzzled, and crawls to her feet as though it's a vast effort. "Where are we?"

"The palace," he says, relieved beyond measure to see her awake, to see that it's her and only her in her body, no Archdemons lurking inside her skin. Not that he can tell.

"I thought I was dead." When she shakes her head ashes fall from her hair. "I had the strangest dreams."

"I'm not surprised," he says, because he doesn't know what else to say. The sense of overwhelming relief isn't enough to beat back everything else—not the knowledge of what they've done or of what comes next, not the guilt that gnaws at him like a rat in the dark. He'd bought his life and hers and the only price had been every bit of honor he had.

_In death, sacrifice_. He hadn't been Warden enough to give either one when it mattered. He turns away, unable to look at her—it's too complicated, just now, his heart feels like it's being torn in a dozen directions at once—and takes up a place standing beside Riordan's body stretched out on the stone. "The others will be relieved to see you. We honestly didn't know if you'd survive."

Therrin circles around behind him, coming to stand on the other side of Riordan's body and contemplating what's left of him. "Did he ever make it to the Archdemon?"

"They said he did. Didn't manage to kill it, obviously, but he tried." Alistair tries to swallow, his throat unexpectedly tight. "He was still a better Warden than we ever were, I know that much."

Therrin nods slowly in agreement, looking almost as unhappy as Alistair feels. She puts out a hand to touch Riordan's arm, briefly, like a talisman of a better self. "Duncan would be appalled at our cowardice," she says, hardly more than a heartsick murmur, and that's all the hypocrisy Alistair can stand. A towering fury explodes inside him in an instant, rage red as blood and twice as hot, the air seems to go out of the world all at once and he grips the edge of the stone table so hard his knuckles go white.

For a moment he wants to hurt her, badly, and doesn't care how. "Get out," he orders, so unlike himself he hardly recognizes his own voice. Therrin flinches in surprise, alarmed but not half alarmed enough, blinking stupidly at him like she hadn't understood. "Get. Out," he repeats, each word like a blade.

She stares at him another second longer, utterly still, and then thankfully for both their sakes she turns, walking dazedly in the direction of the doorway before she goes faster, and then faster until she hits the door at a run.

It isn't enough. It doesn't help to have her gone, not at all; part of him wants her to come back so he can scream at her and exorcise this howling, corrupted _thing_ that seems to be eating his insides, part of him wants never to see her again, part of him wishes he'd never met her at all.

-oOo-

The days that follow are marked by worries, which seems to be the natural state of being a king. There are the ever-present worries about taking the throne running beneath everything else and haunting his dreams. There are worries about Ferelden's blighted lands and the darkspawn still fleeing across the countryside. Most immediate are the worries over the state of the city, over the plight of those who survived the invasion only to lose everything in the process, over the masses of the wounded, the displaced, the missing.

He doesn't realize Therrin is among those missing until Leliana comes to find him, distressed as he's ever seen her, and asks if he knows where Therrin is. He hadn't thought she might be a target for assassination until Leliana mentions it, or kidnapping, or Maker-knows-what else, but he tears himself from his duties to help search every place he can think of and every place they'd gone together in hopes of finding her. She isn't at the Pearl or at the Market, not hidden away at the little grove where they'd made camp outside the city, not at Fort Drakon in the cells or at the side of the rotting Archdemon.

She isn't anywhere.

It's a strange feeling, realizing it, as though the force of his wish has erased her from his life entirely. He would wish differently, if she was here to hear it, but she isn't and so he doesn't know what to do.

Dog is gone, he knows that much, but her pack and staff are still here and she wouldn't have left willingly without those. He keeps them in his new study at the palace, propped in a corner along with the sword she'd used to kill the Archdemon, and for weeks he looks up every time the door opens, expecting it to be Therrin come to collect her things.

She doesn't come back.

After weeks of tension the letter arrives from the Circle, creased but still sealed, little more than a note from Wynne telling him Therrin had returned to the Tower and would likely not be returning to Denerim any time soon. He reads it twice, not quite able to believe it. Of all the places in the world, the Circle Tower is the very last place he'd have guessed she would go. It had been a prison even before it fell; after that it was a living nightmare. It wasn't a place he'd send his worst enemy, much less—

Well. He doesn't think they're really friends anymore, not after all that's happened.

He pens a note, trying to keep things light, unsatisfied at the results but unable to come up with anything better. He has her staff wrapped for travel, but when he hefts her pack something inside sounds like broken glass and he doesn't want to send it along like that. He goes through it carefully, unpacking the contents along the top of his desk—poultices and potions, two of the vials broken, shards of glass littering the bottom of the pack. A set of robes crumpled into a ball, earrings she'd never worn but carried around anyway, a feather he'd seen her pick up out in the Wilds, the day of her Joining.

In a pocket, he finds the rose. It's a sad little thing, these days, faded and fragile in his hands as he looks at it. It's a wonder that it survived so long in the first place. He hadn't expected it would, when he'd picked it.

It feels like a lifetime ago.

He almost tucks it back into the pack—he ought to, he thinks, he gave it to her in the first place and whatever happens to it now, it's none of his business—but it feels wrong to send it back after all that's happened. She wouldn't want it anymore, probably, and the idea of her discarding it is… painful.

It's a silly thing not to want to part with, especially for a king. Still, when he sends on the messenger with her belongings, the rose isn't with them. There's a small compartment on his desk, hidden away from his official business and the eyes of others, just big enough to hold a small dried rose. There it stays, out of sight but not forgotten, kept safe through all the years that follow.


End file.
